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William T. Vollmann Biography

William T. Vollmann

William Tanner Vollmann (born July 28, 1959) is an American novelist, journalist, war correspondent, short story writer, and essayist. He won the 2005 National Book Award for Fiction for the novel Europe Central. He lives in Sacramento, California, with his wife and daughter.

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William T. Vollmann Quotes

If this advertisement be not sufficient, I can only protrude my wormlike tendrils of apology, craving forbearance on the grounds that a writer must write about what he knows, and since I know nothing about any subject it scarcely matters where I dabble.

Apology, Forbearance, Matter, Matters, Tendrils, Writing

So he lent her books. After all, one of life's best pleasures is reading a book of perfect beauty; more pleasurable still is rereading that book; most pleasurable of all is lending it to the person one loves: Now she is reading or has just read the scene with the mirrors; she who is so lovely is drinking in that loveliness I've drunk.

Book, Reading, Drinking, Read, Mirrors, Pleasures

Some friends and I, we went right up there behind the studio and we got on a train, we could tell it was going to go to Roseville. We got off it and got on another train. And we got to Roseville, and it takes hours to get through that yard. It's really big. So we ended up just coming back here. It's like fishing or hunting. You can't always come back with something.

Back, Big, Fishing, Hunting, Roseville, Yards

I studied Comparative Literature at Cornell. Structuralism was real big then. The idea of reading and writing as being this language game. There's a lot of appeal to that. It's nice to think of it as this playful kind of thing. But I think that another way to look at it is "Look, I just want to be sincere. I want to write something and make you feel something and maybe you will go out and do something. " And it seems that the world is in such bad shape now that we don't have time to do nothing but language games. That's how it seems to me.

Nice, Reading, Real, Shape, Studied, Thing

There will come a time when nobody reads my books and no one remembers who I was. And in the meantime, I'll do it my way.

Book, Books, Meantime, Remember, Time, Way

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

Function, Interest, Operates, People

Are you a censor? Do you tell people not to say “girl”? Shame on you! If nothing offends you, you’re a saint or you’re psychotic. If a few things offend you, deal with them--fairly. If you’re often offended by things, you’re probably a self-righteous asshole and it’s too bad you weren’t censored yourself--by your mother in an abortion clinic.

Girl, Mother, Offend, People, Say, Self

Can you understand your own dreams, which arise with mushrooms' rank richness in the night-forests within your skull?

Dream, Mushrooms, Night, Richness, Skull, Understand

I think that we're all, as human beings, so limited. If we want to write about ourselves, that's fairly easy. And if we write about our friends or our families, we can do that. But if we want to project ourselves somewhere beyond our personal experience we're going to fail unless we get that experience or we borrow it from others.

Experience, Friends, Think, Thinking, Want, Writing

Death cannot be experienced either by the dead or the living.

Dead, Death, Experienced, Living

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

Looks, Remember, Sky, Stars

You could imagine writing about a prostitute, for instance, but if you haven't spent time with prostitutes then you're going to get all these details wrong. But if you have a lot of sex with prostitutes and you're friends with prostitutes and you interview prostitutes, then maybe after many, many years you might be able to create prostitute characters.

Character, Details, Friends, Prostitutes, Sex, Writing

I wish I could go back and rewrite my first book, You Bright and Risen Angels; I could do a better job. But in the meantime, nobody knows as much about my books as I do. Nobody has the right but me to say which words go into my books or get deleted or edited. When I'm dying, I'll smile, knowing I stood up for my books. If I die with more money, that wouldn't bring a smile to my face. Unless I got better drugs or more delicious-looking nurses.

Angel, Book, Drugs, Jobs, Money, Words

Just for the hell of it, try to love someone as unlike you as possible.

Love, Trying, Hell, Possible

Maybe life is a process of trading hopes for memories.

Hopes, Life, Life Is, Memories, Process, Trading

There are parts of L. A. that feel very, very Mexican, and there are weird little enclaves of Northside in Mexico - Cancún for instance. So what is a border?

Borders, Enclaves, Mexican, Mexico, Northside

We're living in what used to be Mexico, and there's this very fluid border feeling. You go a little bit south of Tijuana, for instance, into Ensenada, and it still seems kind of borderlike. And you go much farther, suddenly the prices are lower, the prostitution is different, the commerce is different, everything feels more "Mexican. "

Different, Farther, Feeling, Feelings, Fluid, Mexican

I feel like I'm almost ready to write fiction about the border. But even after 10 years of writing nonfiction about it, I don't think I know quite enough to do it right.

Fiction, Like, Ready, Thinking, Writing, Years

I decided that there is really some sort of entity that I call Imperial, and I decided to extend it all the way along the California-Mexico border and into Tijuana and then to the Pacific because it all has a similar feeling.

Borders, California, Extend, Feelings, Imperial, Similar