William Gaddis - Work Quotes

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What's any artist, but the dregs of his work? the human shambles that follows it around. What's left of the man when the work's done but a shambles of apology.

William Gaddis

What is it they want from a man that they didn't get from the work? What do they expect? What is there left of him when he's done his work? What's any artist but the dregs of his work? the human shambles that follows it around.

William Gaddis

I think writers work from their own energies, their own concepts. I don't think there is any influence among us.

William Gaddis

That was Youth with its reckless exuberance when all things were possible pursued by Age where we are now, looking back at what we destroyed, what we tore away from that self who could do more, and its work that's become my enemy because that's what I can tell you about, that Youth who could do anything.

William Gaddis

Everybody has that feeling when they look at a work of art and it's right, that sudden familiarity, a sort of...recognition, as though they were creating it themselves, as though it were being created through them while they look at it or listen to it...

William Gaddis

There is nothing more distressing or tiresome than a writer standing in front of an audience and reading his work.

William Gaddis