'In the nineteenth century, we beat the British more than once,' Afghans often told me. 'In the twentieth century, we beat the Russians. In the twenty-first, if we have to, we'll beat the Americans!' — William T. Vollmann Copy Share Image
Some friends and I, we went right up there behind the studio and we got on a train, we could tell it was going… — William T. Vollmann Copy Share
I read and write for most of the day, but I do let myself be interrupted by real life. I enjoy going out with… — William T. Vollmann Copy Share
“A treble clef, for example, resembles a Muscovite or Leningrader in a bulky hooded parka. A bass clef bends as simply and painfully as… — William T. Vollmann Copy Share
Oh, ants, my sisters, good old honeydew-seekers! From close up you are sticky and shiny and gristly; and your nymphs have parasitic red mites… — William T. Vollmann Copy Share
If I didn't feel that I was doing something or trying to do something for others, then I would have very little excuse for… — William T. Vollmann Copy Share
Just for the hell of it, try to love someone as unlike you as possible. — William T. Vollmann Copy Share
“The shortest man, codenamed RIMSKY, said to me that freedom means understanding our place within the laws of history; we are more free when… — William T. Vollmann Copy Share
“Do you want to know what happiness is? Happiness is the absence of unpleasant information.” — William T. Vollmann Copy Share
My father hates organized religion, probably because he hates the God who killed his little girl back in 1968. I find religions variously bemusing. — William T. Vollmann Copy Share
There's an Inuit myth about the origin of the human race. There were two brothers, and the younger brother eventually gets changed into a… — William T. Vollmann Copy Share
I first got really interested in Noh in about 1977. There was an independent bookstore in Bloomington, Indiana where I was going to high… — William T. Vollmann Copy Share
“More aid, better directed! Couldn't we all use that? And what if the universe enacts less aid, more poorly directed?” — William T. Vollmann Copy Share
“whatever fate sends us quickly becomes us, and we grow blind to what we might otherwise have been. And” — William T. Vollmann Copy Share
