William H. Gass Quotes

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  The true alchemists do not change lead into gold; they change the world into words.

  William H. Gass

  Book, Writing, Kids

  William H. Gass (2010). “A Temple of Texts”, p.37, Knopf Group E-Books

  57 Copy quote

• Sports, politics, and religion are the three passions of the badly educated.

  William H. Gass

  Sports, Passion, Three

  William H. Gass (2014). “In the Heart of the Heart of the Country: And Other Stories”, p.143, New York Review of Books

  23 Copy quote

• Some people say their life is full of darkness and I wonder why they don't just try and switch the lights on.

  William H. Gass

  Light, People, Darkness

  11 Copy quote

• What else is soul but a listener?

  William H. Gass

  Soul, Listening, Listeners

  16 Copy quote

• it is discouraging to leave the past behind only to see it coming toward you like the thunderstorm which drenched you yesterday.

  William H. Gass

  Past, Yesterday, Thunderstorm

  "The Tunnel". Book by William H. Gass, www.drmardy.com. 1995.

  22 Copy quote

• Of course there is enough to stir our wonder anywhere; there's enough to love, anywhere, if one is strong enough, if one is diligent enough, if one is perceptive, patient, kind enough -- whatever it takes.

  William H. Gass

  Strong, Patient, Kind

  William H. Gass (1968). “In the Heart of the Heart of the Country & Other Stories”, p.192, David R. Godine Publisher

  28 Copy quote

• I publish a piece in order to kill it, so that I won't have to fool around with it any longer.

  William H. Gass

  Writing, Order, Pieces

  William H. Gass, Theodore G. Ammon (2003). “Conversations with William H. Gass”, p.34, Univ. Press of Mississippi

  4 Copy quote

• Blue is therefore most suitable as the color of interior life.

  William H. Gass

  Blue, Color, Interiors

  William H. Gass (2014). “On Being Blue: A Philosophical Inquiry”, p.75, New York Review of Books

  29 Copy quote

• Words are the supreme objects. They are minded things.

  William H. Gass

  Mind, Objects, Supreme

  William H. Gass, Theodore G. Ammon (2003). “Conversations with William H. Gass”, p.28, Univ. Press of Mississippi

  9 Copy quote

• I am unlikely to trust a sentence that comes easily.

  William H. Gass

  Unlikely, Sentences

  William H. Gass, Theodore G. Ammon (2003). “Conversations with William H. Gass”, p.29, Univ. Press of Mississippi

  19 Copy quote

• It’s not the word made flesh we want in writing, in poetry and fiction, but the flesh made word

  William H. Gass

  Writing, Want, Fiction

  William H. Gass (2014). “On Being Blue: A Philosophical Inquiry”, p.32, New York Review of Books

  20 Copy quote

• I do have a very conscious desire not to be academic. I'm antiacademic. I hate jargon. I hate that sort of pretension. I am a person who [commits] breaches of decorum - not in private life, but in my work. They are part of my mode of operation. That kind of playfulness is part of my nature in general. The paradox that, in a way, to take something very seriously, you can't always be serious about it.

  William H. Gass

  Hate, Desire, Jargon

  Interview with Stephen Schenkenberg, www.believermag.com. November, 2005.

  20 Copy quote

• The death of God represents not only the realization that gods have never existed, but the contention that such a belief is no longer even irrationally possible: that neither reason nor the taste and temper of the times condones it. The belief lingers on, of course, but it does so like astrology or a faith in a flat earth.

  William H. Gass

  Astrology, Realization, Earth

  12 Copy quote

• But the body fails us and the mirror knows, and we no longer insist that the gray hush be carried off its surface by the cloth, for we have run to fat, and wrinkles encircle the eyes and notch the neck where the skin wattles, and the flesh of the arms hangs loose like an overlarge sleeve, veins thicken like ropes and empurple the body as though they had been drawn there by a pen, freckles darken, liver spots appear, the hairah, the hair is exhausted and gray and lusterless, in weary rolls like cornered lint.

  William H. Gass

  Running, Eye, Mirrors

  10 Copy quote

• For me, the short story is not a character sketch, a mouse trap, an epiphany, a slice of suburban life. It is the flowering of a symbol center. It is a poem grafted onto sturdier stock.

  William H. Gass

  Writing, Character, Stories

  19 Copy quote

• Works of art are meant to be lived with and loved, and if we try to understand them, we should try to understand them as we try to understand anyone — in order to know them better, not in order to know something else.

  William H. Gass

  Art, Order, Trying

  "The Artist and Society” by William H. Gass, medium.com. 1968.

  17 Copy quote

• I write because I hate. A lot. Hard.

  William H. Gass

  Hate, Writing, I Hate

  William H. Gass, Theodore G. Ammon (2003). “Conversations with William H. Gass”, p.8, Univ. Press of Mississippi

  17 Copy quote

• Fiction becomes visual by becoming verbal

  William H. Gass

  Fiction, Becoming, Visuals

  William H. Gass (2014). “On Being Blue: A Philosophical Inquiry”, p.87, New York Review of Books

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• I should like to suggest that at least on the face of it a stroke by stroke story of a copulation is exactly as absurd as a chew by chew account of the consumption of a chicken's wing.

  William H. Gass

  Wings, Stories, Faces

  William H. Gass (2014). “On Being Blue: A Philosophical Inquiry”, p.20, New York Review of Books

  5 Copy quote

• Surely it's better to live in the country, to live on a prairie by a drawing of rivers, in Iowa or Illinois or Indiana, say, than in any city, in any stinking fog of human beings, in any blooming orchard of machines. It ought to be.

  William H. Gass

  Country, Illinois, Fog

  William H. Gass (1968). “In the Heart of the Heart of the Country & Other Stories”, p.193, David R. Godine Publisher

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• The alcoholic trance is not just a haze, as though the eyes were also unshaven. It is not a mere buzzing in the ears, a dizzinessor disturbance of balance. One arrives in the garden again, at nursery time, when the gentle animals are fed and in all the world there are only toys.

  William H. Gass

  Drinking, Eye, Animal

  William H. Gass (1978). “The world within the word: essays”, Alfred A. Knopf

  15 Copy quote

• We have scarcely gotten home ... when our children's sneezes greet us, skinned knees bleed after waiting all day to do so. There is the bellyache and the burned-out basement bulb, the stalled car and the incontinent cat. The windows frost, the toilets sweat, the body of our spouse is one cold shoulder and the darkness of our bedroom is soon full of the fallen shadows of our failures.

  William H. Gass

  Patience, Time, Children

  7 Copy quote

• I am firmly of the opinion that people who can’t speak have nothing to say. It’s one more thing we do to the poor, the deprived: cut out their tongues … allow them a language as lousy as their life

  William H. Gass

  Cutting, People, Tongue

  William H. Gass (2014). “On Being Blue: A Philosophical Inquiry”, p.25, New York Review of Books

  9 Copy quote

• How do we know, then, when a code's been cracked?when we are right?when do we know if we have even received a message? Why, naturally, when, upon one set of substitutions, sense emerges like the outline under a rubbing; when a single tentative construal leads to several; when all the sullen letters of the code cry TEAM! after YEA! has been, by several hands, uncovered.

  William H. Gass

  Team, Reading, Hands

  William H. Gass (2012). “World Within The Word”, p.264, Knopf

  12 Copy quote

• So if hunger provokes wailing and wailing brings the breast; if the breast permits sucking and milk suggests its swallow; if swallowing issues in sleep and stomachy comfort, then need, ache, message, object, act, and satisfaction are soon associated like charms on a chain; shortly our wants begin to envision the things which well reduce them, and the organism is finally said to wish.

  William H. Gass

  Sleep, Issues, Wish

  15 Copy quote

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