When I'm dying, I want to think I did what I felt was best for the words I was writing. This may mean, at any time, that I won't be publishable anymore.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of staying true to one's artistic vision, even at the cost of popularity or commercial success.
William T. Vollmann's quote reflects a deep commitment to the integrity of one's creative work. He expresses a desire to remain faithful to his own beliefs and instincts while writing, suggesting that the value of art lies not in its marketability but in its authenticity. This perspective champions the idea that an artist should prioritize their personal truth over societal expectations or commercial pressures, even if it leads to being unpublishable at times.
In practice
In a writing workshop discussing the importance of authenticity in storytelling.
There have been times when I'm writing about things that are personally embarrassing. Like any human being, sometimes I can't help but wonder - 'What are the people I know going to think about this?' So I have to remind myself that all is permissible. Art has to be a free space. Language has to be a free space.
Everybody is an expert on one thing - that's what I learned in my high school journalism class - and that's, of course, his own life. And everybody deserves to live and have his story told. And if it doesn't seem like an interesting story, then that's the failure of the listener, or the journalist who retells it badly.
Film in the 20th century, it's the American art form, like jazz.
Let us create extraordinary words, on condition that they be put to the most ordinary use and that the entity they designate be made to exist in the same way as the most common object.
It is a mistake for a sculptor or a painter to speak or write very often about his job. It releases tension needed for his work.
The theater has to impose itself on the public, and not the public on the theater... The word "Art" should be written everywhere, in the auditorium and in the dressing rooms, before the word "Business" gets written there.
Footballers can be like artists when the mind and body are working as one. It is what Miles Davis does when he plays free jazz - everything pulls together into one intense moment that is beautiful.
I want paint to work as flesh... my portraits to be of the people, not like them. Not having a look of the sitter, being them ... As far as I am concerned the paint is the person. I want it to work for me just as flesh does.
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