At least I hope - that the fiction I've written so far has flaws but has mostly been successful. William T. Vollmann More Quotes by William T. Vollmann More Quotes From William T. Vollmann 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. William T. Vollmann angeljobsbook 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. William T. Vollmann writingyearsthinking 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. William T. Vollmann rememberbookway 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? William T. Vollmann mexicomexicanborders 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." William T. Vollmann mexicandifferentfeelings The instant people specialize, its in their interest to dehumanize the people their specialized function operates upon. William T. Vollmann functioninterestpeople I don't believe in a personal god. It's good to give thanks, whether or not there's a god. There's no reason not to live life to the fullest. Morality is all the more important for people who don't expect to get a piece of celestial candy after they die. William T. Vollmann goodgodlifepeople When I was writing the first few books, what I would do is write a bunch of sentences and then go back and expand and explode those sentences, pack as much into them as I could, so they'd kind of be like popcorn kernels popping... all this stuff in there to make the writing dense, and beautiful for its density. William T. Vollmann backgowritingbeautiful 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 important to try to do different things - change what I write about, and also the way I write. Otherwise, I'd just be repeating myself, which wouldn't be good for me or fair to my readers. William T. Vollmann goodmyselfmechange Once you've finished typing and moving text around and everything else, you have to leave it alone for a while. You do that to see if it stands up, to see if all the loose edges have been trimmed, if it makes sense, if it's consistent, what shape it really has. You can't tell that while you're working on it. William T. Vollmann aloneseeyoumoving After college, I went to San Francisco and worked as a secretary in a reinsurance company. That was a pretty dismal job. It was a real small place. Guys would come in, and they'd sort of stick out their arms like wings so I could take their coats off. They'd tell me, 'Two,' and I'd put two lumps of sugar in their coffee. William T. Vollmann placejobmecoffee Everybody is probably guilty of something. I'm sure that if anyone looked into my heart long enough, they could say, you know, 'Bill had some unkind thoughts back in second grade.' William T. Vollmann thoughtsyouheartlong Really what it gets down to is that my idea of the American life, the American dream, whatever, is that I can do what I wish in the privacy of my own home. And as long as I'm not hurting anyone, no one has a right to know what I do. The main thing that I have to hide is that I don't have anything to hide. William T. Vollmann american-dreamhomelifelong 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 woman. And that's how humans reproduced. And I thought, 'How could I really understand that?' William T. Vollmann womanthoughtunderstandbrother Not only am I physically and emotionally attracted to women, I also wonder what being a woman would be like. William T. Vollmann womanlikewomenwonder I think most of us who live into our 50s have had a few experiences with death. You know, we see people we know start to die. We realize it's getting closer and closer for us. William T. Vollmann dieyoudeathpeople I go through all of my old notebooks, and I put an X on every page when everything has been entered into the computer, and sometimes that takes 15 years. But eventually the notebooks are full of X's, and they're no good to me anymore. William T. Vollmann goodgomesometimes It's always, you know, a pleasant exercise to imagine my own death because then I'm so happy when I can stop. William T. Vollmann youmy-ownhappydeath At least for me, it takes more knowledge to write fiction than nonfiction. At least about someplace that I begin with a lot of ignorance about. William T. Vollmann moremeignoranceknowledge I first got really interested in Noh in about 1977. There was an independent bookstore in Bloomington, Indiana where I was going to high school. It was a really nice place. There was a New Directions paperback. It was the Pound/Fenollosa book, 'The Classic Noh Theatre of Japan.' William T. Vollmann placenicebookschool
