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 Copy Share Image
At least for me, it takes more knowledge to write fiction than nonfiction. At least about someplace that I begin with a… — William T. Vollmann Copy Share Image
'In the nineteenth century, we beat the British more than once,' Afghans often told me. 'In the twentieth century, we beat the… — William T. Vollmann Copy Share Image
So far, I've never missed a deadline for a term paper, a review, a manuscript. I perform the mumbo-jumbo of voting with… — William T. Vollmann Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
It's fun for me to try to write concise, compact things. It's a very good exercise for me. And I think it's… — William T. Vollmann Copy Share Image
I go through all of my old notebooks, and I put an X on every page when everything has been entered into… — 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 Image
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 Image
“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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
Just for the hell of it, try to love someone as unlike you as possible. — William T. Vollmann Copy Share Image
“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 Image
“Do you want to know what happiness is? Happiness is the absence of unpleasant information.” — William T. Vollmann Copy Share Image
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 Image
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 Image
