Canadian - Novelist | 1975 -
The question of likability is a bit of a puzzler for me. You know, I don't write people with likability in mind. It's more whether or not I find them compelling.
Patrick deWitt
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I don't know that happy people are interesting to write about - or to read about.
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I don't know that I'd call myself an optimist.
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My interest in words and literature is always changing. And every day of work is different, and it doesn't feel laborious in the way that, say, washing dishes did. I'm quite happy to be doing what I'm doing, and I feel very lucky.
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The hardest thing in the world for a writer is to amass a readership. So many good books come out, and so many good books disappear.
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I am a homebody, something that lends itself to my profession.
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The question about my Canadianness comes up a lot, and I'm never quite sure what to say about it. I've carved a life out for myself in Oregon, and it feels like home, not because it's the States but because that's where my friends are and where my son is.
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I wrote for so many years in a bubble, the way everyone does, and there were large swaths of time where you think you're doing this for nothing. An audience is crucial, a back and forth with the invisible readers.
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I have a paranoia that 'Ablutions' is the best thing I'll ever do.
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I was intentionally curbing the impulse to be funny and hiding the ability. I wrote any number of very serious attempts at poems, short stories, novels - horrible. At a certain point, I recognized that it was fun to write dialogue that had a degree of lightness and humor.
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Some deeper part of me wants to write comical dialogue; I'd be foolish to not follow that impulse. Now I recognize that if there's energy to a section of work, you go where the energy is. It's a living thing, and you just follow it.
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I'm either enjoying myself or I'm not. And if I'm not enjoying myself, something's gone terribly wrong.
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