William T. Vollmann Quotes

California must be all American or all Chinese. We are resolved that it shall be American, and are prepared to make it so.

Americans are much more American than they are Northerners, Southerners, Westerners, or Easterners ... California Chinese, Boston Irish, Wisconsin German, yes, Alabama Negroes, have more in common than they have apart ... The American identity is an exact and provable thing.

The residuum of another's expression can never be related to one's own feeling.

I know that I have lived because I have felt, and, feeling giving me the knowledge of my existence.

Every prayer - every thought, every statement, every feeling - is creative.

I certainly have had experiences of a sense of wonder at the world and a feeling that even though it could all be explained rationally, it still feels that there is more to it.

To tempt, and to be tempted, are things very nearly allied, and, in spite of the finest maxims of morality impressed upon the mind, whenever feeling has anything to do in the matter, no sooner is it excited than we have already gone vastly farther than we are aware of, and I have yet to learn how it is possible to prevent its being excited.

Attention without feeling is only a report.

Every action, thought, and feeling is motivated by an intention, and that intention is a cause that exists as one with an effect In this most profound way, we are held responsible for every action, thought, and feeling, which is to say, for our every intention.

I live in a town that's two and a half hours from the border. I know people who have lived in San Antonio for generations, sometimes seven generations, their families are from there, and they are of Mexican descent, and they've never gone farther than the border.

The square = feeling, the white field = the void beyond this feeling.

I grew up in Southern California, so the whole concept of a local music history is still kinda novel to me.

Best way to live in California is to be from somewheres else.

Intellect begins with the observation of nature, proceeds to memorize and classify the facts thus observed, and by logical deduction builds up that edifice of knowledge properly called science… But admittedly we also know by feeling, and we can combine the two faculties, and present knowledge in the guise of art.

Emote. It's okay. It shows you are thinking and feeling.

I grew up in Louisiana and I think people get it confused. They assume that I lived in California or that's where I'm from. I worked there, but I didn't live there.

The meat of the buffalo tastes the same on both sides of the border.

Non-attachment is not the elimination of desire. It is the spaciousness to allow any quality of mind, any thought or feeling, to arise without closing around it, without eliminating the pure witness of being. It is an active receptivity to life.

Feeling of an emotion is a process that is distinct from having the emotion in the first place. So it helps to understand what is an emotion, what is a feeling, we need to understand what is an emotion.

John Kerry had surgery on his right shoulder this week to repair some damage. It was pretty bad, he had no feeling. It was almost like he was a Republican.

If I can be serious now, and I have the feeling I can.

I'm a New Yorker. Matter of fact, the more I'm in places like Texas and California, the more I know I'm a New Yorker. I have no confusions. About that.

Enthusiasm imparts itself magnetically and fuses all into one happy and harmonious unity of feeling and sentiment.

Individuality is founded in feeling

I've lived in California for half of my life. It's weird, everyone thinks of me as this guy who's from the South ... I'm really a Californian.