24+ William Gaddis Quotes On Absurd, Satirical And Complex

William Gaddis was an American novelist, known for his dense, complex works of fiction. He is considered one of the foremost American postmodern authors of the 20th century, and his 1955 novel The Recognitions is often cited as his masterpiece. His other works include J R (1975), Carpenter's Gothic (1985), and Agapē Agape (2002). Following is our collection on famous quotes by William Gaddis on love, absurd, satirical.

Top 10 William Gaddis Quotes

1. What’s any artist, but the dregs of his work?
2. 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.
3. Justice? You get justice in the next world, in this world you have the law.
4. How some of the writers I come across get through their books without dying of boredom is beyond me.
5. ...mementos of this world, in which the things worth being were so easily exchanged for the things worth having.
6. Power doesn't corrupt people, people corrupt power.
7. He walked out into the cold morning asking himself this heretical question: Can you start measuring a minute at any instant you wish?
8. There is nothing more distressing or tiresome than a writer standing in front of an audience and reading his work.
9. We're comic. We're all comics. We live in a comic time. And the worse it gets the more comic we are.
10. How real is any of the past, being every moment revalued to make the present possible.

William Gaddis Short Quotes

• We want someone to bring us the news.
• If it is not beautiful for someone, it does not exist.
• That's what I can't stand. I know I'll bounce back, and that's what I can't stand.
• It is the bliss of childhood that we are being warped most when we know it the least.

William Gaddis Quotes About Work

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

What is it they want from the man that they didn't get from the work? What do they expect? What is there left when he's done with his work, what's any artist but the dregs of his work, the human shambles that follows it around? — William Gaddis

He was the only person caught in the collapse, and afterward, most of his work was recovered too, and it is still spoken of, when it is noted, with high regard, though seldom played. — William Gaddis

William Gaddis Famous Quotes And Sayings

I see the player piano as the grandfather of the computer, the ancestor of the entire nightmare we live in, the birth of the binary world where there is no option other than yes or no and where there is no refuge. — 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

Tragedy was foresworn, in ritual denial of the ripe knowledge that we are drawing away from one another, that we share only one thing, share the fear of belonging to another, or to others, or to God; love or money, tender equated in advertising and the world, where only money is currency, and under dead trees and brittle ornaments prehensile hands exchange forgeries of what the heart dare not surrender. — William Gaddis

Say a word, say a thousand to me on the telephone and I shall choose the wrong one to cling to as though you had said it after long deliberation when only I provoked it from you, I will cling to it from among a thousand, to be provoked and hurl it back with something I mean no more than you meant that, something for you to cling to and retreat clinging to. — William Gaddis

If you want to make a million you don't have to understand money, what you have to understand is people's fears about money — William Gaddis

Why do you treat me as they do, as though I were exactly what I want to be. Why do we treat people that way? — William Gaddis

I mean why should somebody go steal and break the law to get all they can when there's always some law where you can be legal and get it all anyway! — William Gaddis

Life Lessons by William Gaddis

1. William Gaddis teaches us the importance of looking beyond the surface of things, to find the deeper meaning and complexity of life.
2. His works demonstrate the power of satire and irony in exploring the absurdities and hypocrisies of society.
3. Through his writing, Gaddis encourages us to question our assumptions and to think critically about the world around us.