I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet's, the writer's, duty is to write about these things.
William Faulkner - The Nobel Prize Banquet Speech, December 10, 1950, quoted in Vanderleun's piece which we linked yesterday.