Whereas if I want to create a prostitute character now from memories of different prostitutes and inventing stuff, I can say, "this… — William T. Vollmann Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
[Ernest ]Hemingway always said, "Write about what you know." I think you can do that, and if you want to write about… — William T. Vollmann Copy Share Image
When I'm dying, I want to think I did what I felt was best for the words I was writing. This may… — William T. Vollmann Copy Share Image
I've always felt I want to be of service to the world somehow. I haven't yet figured out how to do it,… — William T. Vollmann Copy Share Image
I want to fall in love with beautiful women of all races. Rescue somebody every now and then, improve my painting, and… — William T. Vollmann Copy Share Image
I think that we're all, as human beings, so limited. If we want to write about ourselves, that's fairly easy. And if… — 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