The speeding reader guts a book the way the skillful clean fish. The gills are gone, the tail, the scales, the fins; then the fillet slides away swifly as though fed to a seal. — William H. Gass Copy Share Image
Only the slow reader will notice the odd crowd of images-flier, butcher, seal-which have gathered to comment on the aims and activities of the speeding reader, perhaps like gossips at a wedding. — William H. Gass Copy Share Image
“Try to remember that artists in these catastrophic times, along with the serious scientists, are the only salvation for us, if there is to… — William H. Gass Copy Share Image
“If someone asks me, “Why do you write?” I can reply by pointing out that it is a very dumb question. Nevertheless, there is… — William H. Gass Copy Share Image
The things that stayed were things that didn't matter except they stayed, night and day, all seasons the same, and were peaceful to a… — William H. Gass Copy Share Image
When book and reader's furrowed brow meet, it isn't always the book that's stupid. — William H. Gass Copy Share Image
“It's a simple world for her. A curtain fluttering - that's how she is - lives, moves - obediently, yet with every appearnace of… — William H. Gass Copy Share Image
“I dreamed my lips would drift down your back like a skiff on a river. I'd follow a vein with the point of my… — William H. Gass Copy Share Image
“Yes, we call it recursive, the act of reading, of looping the loop, of continually returning to an earlier group of words, behaving like… — William H. Gass Copy Share Image
“Then let us have a language worthy of our world, a democratic style where rich and well-born nouns can roister with some sluttish verb… — William H. Gass Copy Share Image
We must take our sentences seriously, which means we must understand them philosophically, and the odd thing is that the few who do, who… — William H. Gass Copy Share Image
We converse as we live by repeating, by combining and recombining a few elements over and over again just as nature does when of… — William H. Gass Copy Share Image
