William T. Vollmann

“But illusions don’t die all at once—”

— William T. Vollmann

“We each must fulfill our own obligation.”

— William T. Vollmann

Don't write for money.

— William T. Vollmann

It will be fun to give some to prostitutes,

— William T. Vollmann

“All this is the flimsiest speculation, which is God’s gift to historical fictioneers.”

— William T. Vollmann

“Her breasts were big and sad like owls' eyes.”

— William T. Vollmann

“In the Hitler years we still believed in books enough to burn them. Imagine,”

— William T. Vollmann

“Rejected content will come out somewhere else. That”

— William T. Vollmann

“Excuse me, my sweetest little Tatianochka, sometimes I forget how time ticks! Well,”

— William T. Vollmann

“At least I had one thing going for me: I was a realist.”

— William T. Vollmann

Death cannot be experienced either by the dead or the living.

— William T. Vollmann

“We Communists say, if it has no practically measurable effect, it's not people's art!”

— William T. Vollmann

“Mitya was almost ready to confess which chord it was which actually caused him to see rainbow icicles. Soon”

— William T. Vollmann

Not only am I physically and emotionally attracted to women, I also wonder what being a woman would be like.

— William T. Vollmann

I might enjoy writing some ghost stories set in Japan because their whole idea about the spirit world is so interesting.

— William T. Vollmann

“There was no one as good as he at using the ovens of logic to bake agreeable results. ”

— William T. Vollmann

“Lecktrickery?” grinned the fool boys, rubbing their rabbits’ feet against the spell of these longest syllables in all Tarnation.”

— William T. Vollmann

The instant people specialize, it's in their interest to dehumanize the people their specialized function operates upon.

— William T. Vollmann

“More aid, better directed! Couldn't we all use that? And what if the universe enacts less aid, more poorly directed?”

— William T. Vollmann

“Plato says that as one learns to love, the image of any specific beloved can be left behind for knowledge of the…

— William T. Vollmann

A common measure of poverty is how much money you have in relation to other people - that is useful as far…

— William T. Vollmann

I didn't vote for Bush, and I'm not happy particularly that he's president. But I will say I'm impressed that he didn't…

— William T. Vollmann

“At an office party, John heard a woman say: I want to divest. I want somebody to buy us. Then we can…

— William T. Vollmann

Are you a censor? Do you tell people not to say “girl”? Shame on you! If nothing offends you, you’re a saint…

— William T. Vollmann

“Most literary critics agree that fiction cannot be reduced to mere falsehood. Well-crafted protagonists come to life, pornography causes orgasms, and the…

— William T. Vollmann

Once you've finished typing and moving text around and everything else, you have to leave it alone for a while. You do…

— William T. Vollmann

After college, I went to San Francisco and worked as a secretary in a reinsurance company. That was a pretty dismal job.…

— William T. Vollmann

There's an Inuit myth about the origin of the human race. There were two brothers, and the younger brother eventually gets changed…

— William T. Vollmann

I studied Comparative Literature at Cornell. Structuralism was real big then. The idea of reading and writing as being this language game.…

— William T. Vollmann

“It sure if terrific to be in the back seat of a car full of all the people in your affinity group,…

— William T. Vollmann

“This is the heart of it, the scared woman who does not want to go alone to the man any longer, because…

— William T. Vollmann

“Frank thought. Each time he became someone else’s spy it got easier. The ideological virgin usually finds his first time an excruciating…

— William T. Vollmann

“I can't say I know much, but I've loved, maybe too much; maybe from love I'll get my death. I've seen Madagascar…

— William T. Vollmann

“I just make the best book that I can and try to not worry about audience or if it will sell. The…

— William T. Vollmann

“Rising up, rising down! History shambles on! What are we left with? A few half-shattered Greek stelae; Trotsky's eyeglasses; Gandhi's native-spun cloth,…

— William T. Vollmann

“...As a child he had gone out for Halloween as a mummy, a vampire, a blue-and-green-swolen drowned boy, all kinds of sufferings…

— William T. Vollmann

“I just don't wanna be an ostrich. That's all.”

— William T. Vollmann

“I’ve never shot a civilian except when under orders.”

— William T. Vollmann

“Life calls for the highest order of deafness; then we can be, so to speak, happy. It”

— William T. Vollmann

“the skin of her naked throat was as perfect as a political idea. She”

— William T. Vollmann