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If you know everything, it keeps you from writing. You don't want a story to burn you out instead of surprising you.
Joe R. Lansdale -
If I could take you back in time to the fifties and walk you around to some of the places where I grew up, you'd be trying to get back in your time machine. It wasn't all sock hops - matter of fact, I never saw a sock hop.
Joe R. Lansdale
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I always write like the devil's behind me with a whip. I'm going to write because I like it. Then I'm going to write another.
Joe R. Lansdale -
Ray Bradbury taught me the importance of metaphor and simile and poetic style.
Joe R. Lansdale -
I sold my first story when I was 21 in 1973.
Joe R. Lansdale -
My dad was born in 1909, my mother in 1914, I believe. Their life experiences were different than younger parents, so I grew up with a different perspective.
Joe R. Lansdale -
My father was just a hell of a guy. He had a real strong sense of honor, and he tried to pass that on to me. I like to think that I embrace that.
Joe R. Lansdale -
Twain is my keystone. He reminds me of my people because that's the way they told stories.
Joe R. Lansdale
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I think the big thing is that Stephen King is just a phenomenon, and when he came along, for the first time horror was suddenly considered a very commercial genre. It had always been around, of course, but now, the books had the word 'horror' actually printed on their spines.
Joe R. Lansdale -
The Westerns have probably affected me more than any one thing, Western-related material. I love Westerns.
Joe R. Lansdale -
'Night They Missed the Horror Show' is my signature story. It changed my life, so it remains my favorite.
Joe R. Lansdale -
Edgar Rice Burroughs taught me pace and gave me a sense of action and adventure.
Joe R. Lansdale -
I was a house dad. Once, my wife was working as a dispatcher at the fire department, and I was staying home and writing while baby-sitting my son, who hardly ever slept. So I wrote in twenty-minute patches. Some of that early stuff is just dreadful. I got a thousand rejects.
Joe R. Lansdale -
'The Bottoms' or 'A Fine Dark Line' are two of my favorites.
Joe R. Lansdale
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I've always done just pretty much what I wanted to do. I mean, I just did a thing for a small press called 'Zeppelins West' that's nothing but an absolute, over-the-top farce, almost like an Abbott & Costello, alternate-universe Western.
Joe R. Lansdale -
My father was the first person to introduce me to self-defense and martial arts, which I've been doing all my life now.
Joe R. Lansdale -
I never got a degree; I just started writing.
Joe R. Lansdale -
I think I built my reputation by not worrying about it.
Joe R. Lansdale -
'Bubba Ho-Tep' was an accidental story that turned out to be my first film adaptation, and it's still going strong in story and film.
Joe R. Lansdale -
I write what I hear.
Joe R. Lansdale
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In some ways, I don't consider a single Hap and Leonard novel the best, but I consider them my best characters.
Joe R. Lansdale -
Robert Bloch taught me about mixing horror and humor.
Joe R. Lansdale -
I never felt poor. Our family euphemism was that we were broke, which I think psychologically gave you a different feeling. There were people far worse than we were.
Joe R. Lansdale -
I was well under the spell of the old Gold Medal Crime novels when I wrote 'Savage Season,' and I wanted to write a modern version of that. I had tried the same thing with 'Cold in July,' and I wanted to give it another go.
Joe R. Lansdale