William T. Vollmann

Really what it gets down to is that my idea of the American life, the American dream, whatever, is that I can…

— 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

“At least I had one thing going for me: I was a realist.”

— 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

“What do you get when you cross a nymphomaniac with a kleptomaniac? A rapist, said Tyler.”

— William T. Vollmann

“A pianist can sometimes resemble a slow underwater swimmer, and a lover likewise swims within the sea of the other, far down…

— William T. Vollmann

We're living in what used to be Mexico, and there's this very fluid border feeling. You go a little bit south of…

— William T. Vollmann

“Unlike most inmates of that epoch, the woman could see the future as brightly as if it were a six-pointed star of…

— William T. Vollmann

As large publishers turn into monopolies, and the MBAs who are running them - maybe editors used to run them before -…

— William T. Vollmann

When I go train hopping and I look up into the sky, there are always so many more stars than I remember…

— William T. Vollmann

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

The instant people specialize, it's in their interest to dehumanize the people their specialized function operates upon.

— William T. Vollmann

“Socioeconomic formations versus an officer’s heels on a parquet floor, which would I choose?”

— William T. Vollmann

“Looking at her, thinking of her transported him, which struck him as vile because now it was hard for him not to…

— William T. Vollmann

“This book was written by a traitor to his class. It is dedicated to bigots everywhere. Ladies and gentlemen of the black…

— William T. Vollmann

“Life calls for the highest order of deafness; then we can be, so to speak, happy. It”

— William T. Vollmann

'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

“After all, one of life’s best pleasures is reading a book of perfect beauty; more pleasurable still is rereading that book; most…

— William T. Vollmann

“The blood kept welling up and getting over things so that she couldn’t see what she was doing, which annoyed her; but…

— William T. Vollmann

“On the radio, Klavdia Sulzhenko sang “The Blue Kerchief.” The war had died; that song was getting old; then again, so was…

— William T. Vollmann

“Rejected content will come out somewhere else. That”

— William T. Vollmann

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

“As he breathed the black and grey air into his body he no longer thought of anything as lovely, the way the…

— William T. Vollmann

“But, as I have said, the bugs had no interest in getting us…and no great curiosity or enthusiasm about us as such;…

— William T. Vollmann

“I just don't wanna be an ostrich. That's all.”

— William T. Vollmann