Zitat des Tages von Daniel Woodrell:
You want to hear an agent scream, say, 'I'm thinking about doing a collection of short stories set in the Ozarks.'
I think there are some folks who don't particularly like what I have to say, but on the whole, the reaction has been very positive.
I don't think I can write a book as nihilistic as some of my early ones. They're so bleak. I don't think I would enjoy that as much anymore. You really become fixated on ways out.
I was basically raised to look for chances to get even with several families for stuff that happened 30 or 40 years before I was born.
I always gravitate towards anything from Ireland. With Irish lit, I love the use of language, but also in many instances, the Irish writers are writing about people and circumstances that I can relate to.
Just because it's got a gun doesn't make it a crime novel, and just because there's a horse doesn't make it a western.
I don't want to be callous about it, but we all seemed to get over the Oklahoma bombing pretty quickly, and we're never going to get over 9/11.
I'm very attracted to poetry for all the reasons someone likes poetry. The notion of compression seems to fit my personality.
I'm not from the movie world. I'm from the book world.
As a high-school drop-out, I knew I wanted to write, but I wasn't overly confident that I was going to be writing anything serious. I was happy enough with the idea that I could be a penny-a-word guy and survive.
I'd just lie around all day. It's the chemo, the poison they pump into you. Sometimes I'd be walking across the room and think, 'There it is; I got to rest.' And I had to, right then.
I felt like a number of things in me as a writer just clicked.
But I've been at writing long enough now to know that every three or four books I have to start a new direction.
I've always been fascinated by the Mississippi River and the way of life in these small river towns.
You realize you're alive while you're alive, and you better notice it then, because later, it's hard to see.
Earned a bachelor's at 27, then an M.F.A. that is still completely unused and in mint condition, never taken out of the box.
I guess it's ridiculously romantic, but I wanted to be a full tilt, sink-or-swim writer.
My father was a salesman, and I always said I wouldn't be one.
I have a Ford Taurus, and I don't care who knows it.
I think my grandmother Woodrell was most responsible for my becoming a writer. She wasn't quite literate, but was very proud that she attended school as far as the third grade. She worked as a maid, housekeeper and cook.
Texas humor and Southern humor are pretty similar.
I know people who have, until recently, lived with dirt floors. There are people who live way back off the grid, without electricity. Not a whole lot, but quite a few. That's a choice for a lot of them. There might be a religious element in their isolation, at least with some of them.
I've been at writing long enough now to know that every three or four books, I have to start a new direction.
If I weren't so lazy, I would have 14 books, not eight.
I liked my fellow Marines. I didn't like pointless orders.
I rise near dawn, make a strong cup of coffee, wander to my desk and come fully awake by reading something written the day before.