Top 10 Famous Literary & Artistic Speeches Everyone Should Read

William Faulkner, Albert Camus, Gabriel García Márquez, Toni Morrison, Harold Pinter, Doris Lessing, Jean-Paul Sartre, James Baldwin, Bertrand Russell, T. S. Eliot These addresses, mostly delivered on the occasion of the Nobel Prize in Literature, explore the responsibilities of the writer, the power and limits of language, the relationship between art and history, and the moral duties of the artist in a violent and uncertain world. They range from affirmations of human endurance to critiques of solitude, power, and the uses of storytelling itself. 1. William Faulkner, Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech Speaker: William Faulkner Date: December 10, 1950 Audience: Nobel Prize ceremony, Stockholm Occasion: Acceptance of the 1949 Nobel Prize in Literature Summarily! A defiant affirmation that man will not merely endure but prevail, and that the writer’s duty is to remind humanity of the old verities of the heart: courage, honor, hope, pride, compassion, and sacrifice. Speech Text “I feel that t…