Donald Ray Pollock Famous Quotes
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It's hard to live a good life ... It seems like the Devil don't ever let up.
J.R. Angelella is a truly gifted writer. Zombie is one of the smartest, strangest, and most beautifully crafted coming-of-age stories you will ever encounter.
I listen to a lot of different stuff, from Mozart to Johnny Dowd to Monster Magnet. I don't listen to music while I'm writing a draft, but I do listen to it when I'm revising.
I'm trying to break myself of that habit [of not writing out a first draft ] because I'm working on a couple novels and I know if I tried to write those books the way I wrote the stories it would take me years to finish.
The Oxys filled holes in me I hadn't realized were empty. It was, at least for those first few months, a wonderful way to be disabled. I felt blessed.
Don't get me wrong: I think that everyone should put forth an effort to do better, but let's face it, some of us are just plain luckier than others.
He imagined the door to a sad, empty room closing with a faint click, never to be opened again, and that calmed him a little.
A lot of people get the wrong impression, think there's something romantic or tragic about hitting bottom.
I would like to write a book that wasn't so violent and weird, but I just don't think I can do that with my talent. I don't think it would come off.
Four hundred or so people lived in Knockemstiff in 1957, nearly all of them connected by blood through one godforsaken calamity or another, be it lust or necessity or just plain ignorance.
I am very indebted to southern writers and not just Flannery O'Connor. Also Harry Crews, Larry Brown, Tennessee Williams, Barry Hannah and William Gay.
The way I saw the characters these things just happened naturally. At the same time - and I know it's probably not apparent when you read the book - but I really tried to hold back because I didn't want it to become a cartoon.
I spent thirty-two years in a paper mill in southern Ohio, and before that, I worked in a meatpacking plant and a shoe factory.
Because of who we were, I already knew what we would do.
I took a correspondence course with a guy at Ohio University. He gave me ten exercises, and one of them resulted in the story "Bactine." It pleased me a lot more than anything else I'd ever done, so I kept messing around and by the time I got to Ohio State I'd written maybe eight stories.
You can't be a pussy all your life Todd. Someday you're just gonna have to say fuck it.
Jimmy's eyes would turn as red and sticky as candy, and his head would fall back against the seat in a dream. If he were lucky tonight, maybe he would see something that he hadn't seen before. And then it would be my turn.
Michael Koryta is an amazingly talented writer, and I rank The Prophet as one of the sharpest and superbly plotted crime novels I've read in my life.
Look, girls don't care how many push-ups you can do. They just want to get high and wear flowers in their hair. Maybe steal a car.
They's a lot of no-good sonofabitches out there."
Arvin asks, "More than a hundred?"
Willard laughed a little and put the truck in gear. "Yeah, at least that many.
I had this bad habit of not writing out a first draft and going back. For me it was the first sentence, then the second sentence, and I might be several weeks on the first page instead of writing a draft and trying to figure it out from there.
I sort of like writing about weird characters, I guess.
I don't think my book is any more shocking than if I went out right now and brought back your local newspaper and found a story that happened around here yesterday or the day before that's just as shocking as anything in my book.
If the story wasn't overly long, I'd type it out. And I'd carry it around with me for a week and jot notes on it, and then I'd throw it away and do another one.
Nobody really turns out too happy in any of my stuff. It's really strange, because I'm actually a pretty happy person. I'm not walking around giggling or anything like that, but I've got this feeling that everything is okay with my life.
When you first heard him talking about it, you'd figure he was batshit crazy, but really, he was just trying to fill up his days so he didn't have to think about what a fucking mess he had made of everything. It's the same for most of us; forgetting our lives might be the best we'll ever do.
When I started graduate school we did this publishing class where we learned about submitting and read interviews with editors from different magazines. A lot of them said they got so many submissions that unless the first page stuck out or the first paragraph or even the first sentence they'll probably send it back. So part of my idea was that if I have a really good first sentence maybe they'll read on a bit further. At least half, maybe more of the stories in Knockemstiff started with the first sentence; I got it down then went from there.
I'm beginning to believe that anything I do to extend my life is just going to be outweighed by the agony of living it.
I'm not sure about 'absolute' happiness, but I am happiest when I go to bed at night knowing that I tried to do my best that day.
A damp, gray sky covered southern Ohio like the skin of a corpse.
I worked in a paper mill all my adult life and there were a lot of funny guys there. So you pick up on that. Even though something really bad might have happened to somebody you can still make a joke out of it.