Tawni O'Dell Quotes

Why would she want to come back here and live?' I wondered. 'Doesn't seem like she'd want to.'
'Why do you say that?'
'She seems different, that's all.'
'I don't know,' Bud said. 'You might be confusing different with dissatisfied.

When I begin writing, I have no idea what my novels are ultimately going to be about. I don't have a plot. I never consider a theme. I don't make notes or outlines.

She hated her job the same way I hated my jobs because she knew she was worth more, but she also hated herself so there wasn't much point in trying to do better.

I'm a novelist, and I'm a woman, and I'm considered to be a serious author whether I like it or not.

The image I had was that Oprah books were fluffy.

I've discovered as an author that the process of writing a novel becomes harder over time, not easier. I used to think the reverse must be true, that it would be like any task, and the more I practiced, the more adept I'd become.

People, including me, can get so detached from everything, but when you can focus on a defined place, a home, it gets you back in touch.

I wanted to end it now, like a bad TV show turned off in the middle.

They were like English teachers who took the fun out of a perfectly good book by breaking it down into themes and sentence structures

You and I have never shared a bank account or a child or a bed. But you are my wife.

I don't try to sugarcoat things, but I also think my books make positive statements about the people and values in small-town America.

I'm a novelist - not an expert on coal mining. I'm not a politician with an agenda to push. I'm not a reporter presenting facts, and I'm not a sociologist documenting the last struggling remnants of blue-collar America. I'm simply an author who sets her books in coal country because it's where I come from, and it's what I know.

When you live in a community where people know you, it makes you want to be good and decent. It's a strong influence.

Never give up on your dream ... Perseverance is all important. If you don't have the desire and the belief in yourself to keep trying after you've been told you should quit, you'll never make it.

Here I am, this smart, bookish girl, and I have this biker-chick name.

I've never had any desire to be loved. I prefer being feared. It gets the same results but without any hugging.

I learned the most important aspect of a mother's love was not the intensity but its reliable consistency.

A man spends his whole life trying to prove his worth to others. A woman spends her life trying to prove her worth to herself.

I write literary, not commercial, fiction - or so I've been told by my publishers who are proud I write literary fiction but secretly wish I wrote commercial.

What do you need that for?" he asks about the Jack Daniel's. "We might have to hit her over the head." "Why are you smiling?" "Because this is a happy time," I tell him honestly, even after I push aside the image of knocking Shannon unconscious with a bottle of JD. "This is fun. This is good. When this is all over, we're going to have a baby." He doesn't look all that convinced, but he trots after me as we take our equipment into Shannon's room. She's sitting propped up on the bed with every pillow in my house behind her, blowing out air like a stalled locomotive. "You're going to ruin my pillows," I moan. "I'll buy you new pillows," she spits at me. "I'll buy you a new bed. I'll buy you a new fucking house." "Watch your language," I tell her. "There's a little kid here." "You think I care about a fucking little kid? Why is there a little kid here?" "Can we hit her yet?" Kenny asks. "Not yet." Fanci

She's sitting propped up on the

Maybe over time I'll forget the feel and smell and sound of him, the same way I am starting to forget Mom, but I'll never be able to forget that he should've been here.

Coal mining is an industry rife with mismanagement, corruption, greed and an almost blatant disregard for the safety, health and quality of life of its work force. Everyone knows this. Everyone has always known it.

She told me once she envied the women who lived back in the good old days who only had to worry about Indians and mountain lions killing their husbands. Something about those things being beyond a wife's control.

I've decided that the worst part of loneliness isn't being alone. It's being forgotten.

Nothing shatters the reality of our good intentions like reality.

Most people who stay do it because they're afraid to leave, and most people who leave do it because they're afraid to stay. If you stop and think about it you'll find that fear is the motivating factor for most decisions people make in their lives

My experience growing up in a rough and tumble town in the blue-collar world of Western Pennsylvania in the 1970s was that anything a man did was always more important than anything a woman did.

It turned out I really didn't like journalism. I wanted to make up stories, not cover real events.

I really, really missed the Pennsylvania countryside and hills.