William T. Vollmann

“Evil is one thing. Evil's only subjective. Illegal is another.”

— William T. Vollmann

“Such mental haziness is in order, given the delightful vagueness of the terrain.”

— William T. Vollmann

“As the great Moltke used to say, Genius is diligence.”

— William T. Vollmann

“Self-deception is a pessimistic definition of optimism.”

— William T. Vollmann

“The hospital bulked darkly in the darkness.”

— William T. Vollmann

Just for the hell of it, try to love someone as unlike you as possible.

— William T. Vollmann

Maybe life is a process of trading hopes for memories.

— William T. Vollmann

“The times are new, but the informers are old.”

— William T. Vollmann

It's always, you know, a pleasant exercise to imagine my own death because then I'm so happy when I can stop.

— William T. Vollmann

I'm still a marginal figure living from book to book, but, as long as I'm producing labour as a good Marxist prole,…

— William T. Vollmann

“Anyone who would pay to have sex with a woman who has no options deserves to get ripped off.”

— William T. Vollmann

“It’s now widely agreed in progressive social circles that all humankind constitutes a single superorganism.”

— William T. Vollmann

There will come a time when nobody reads my books and no one remembers who I was. And in the meantime, I'll…

— William T. Vollmann

I read and write for most of the day, but I do let myself be interrupted by real life. I enjoy going…

— William T. Vollmann

“those T-34s? Better not to look! I see you shining, my beloved, chaotic, all-knowing, heartless Russia. Stalin’s daughter Svetlana wrote that.”

— William T. Vollmann

“We should have known that the only reason that Shostakovich’s nightmare restored us to ourselves was so we’d be compelled to drink…

— William T. Vollmann

“Mr. Norris knew this hoard to be worth much less than the tall man believed, but as long he believed it, he'd…

— William T. Vollmann

“The shortest man, codenamed RIMSKY, said to me that freedom means understanding our place within the laws of history; we are more…

— William T. Vollmann

Whenever I travel to a poor country, I try to help at least one person. Usually, that person helps me just as…

— William T. Vollmann

“Even Tyler would be infected by this surprising outbreak of sadness, which he certainly would not have felt had he simply never…

— William T. Vollmann

“Life is an extended camping trip. With a leaky, inferior tent one runs no more risk of rain than anyone else; but…

— William T. Vollmann

“I do most sincerely believe that ethical behavior as we best construe it ought to be followed by us throughout our lives,…

— William T. Vollmann

My father grew up in an era when to be an American - a white American, at least - was to be…

— William T. Vollmann

“But I don't think a river wants anything, except to be itself. Just like anybody and anything. I don't think it claimed…

— William T. Vollmann

“In the preface of "The Rifles" "Another rule we followed was never kill an animal that we were not going to use…

— William T. Vollmann

“Who dies best, the soldier who falls for your sake, or the fly in my whiskey-glass? The happy agony of the fly…

— William T. Vollmann

“It is the occupation of politicians to deny this ubiquity, nay, universality of corroded hearts, to discount the barren laboriousness of all…

— William T. Vollmann

“he had always longed to let himself go, sinking and spinning into something greater than himself; and his mind quite naturally worked…

— William T. Vollmann

“Best listened to in a windowless room, better than best in an airless room—correctly speaking, a bunker sealed forever and enwrapped in…

— William T. Vollmann

“So you cheat on your wife and you want me to give you a gold star for it, said Domino. Well, mister,…

— William T. Vollmann

Oh, ants, my sisters, good old honeydew-seekers! From close up you are sticky and shiny and gristly; and your nymphs have parasitic…

— William T. Vollmann

“Jimmy decided to get drunk—not just drunk enough to enjoy life (here he grinned, and Cecily smiled back), not just drunk enough…

— William T. Vollmann

“The reformed addict who feels the craving almost believes in it, then merely smiles…”

— William T. Vollmann

Whenever we have an opportunity to engage with each other as human beings and to minimize the differences between us based on…

— William T. Vollmann

I feel like I'm almost ready to write fiction about the border. But even after 10 years of writing nonfiction about it,…

— William T. Vollmann

My father hates organized religion, probably because he hates the God who killed his little girl back in 1968. I find religions…

— William T. Vollmann

Kabuki is the way that I so often write; Noh is how I would write if I were more 'spiritual,' more understated,…

— William T. Vollmann

I think most of us who live into our 50s have had a few experiences with death. You know, we see people…

— William T. Vollmann

“Thus the protagonist of this Dream of mine is ooze, here and forever call'd Oozymandias the King. ”

— William T. Vollmann

“23 He dreamed that a bomb was singing to him. From far away, the bomb was coming to marry him. The bomb…

— William T. Vollmann