Patrick deWitt Quotes
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Working in a bar was a horrific idea for me.
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I wouldn't want to write a biography of anyone. I'd feel too inhibited by the facts and too much pressure to do the subject's life justice.
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If you're not riddled with doubt, you've probably done something wrong.
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Looking around, I saw so many unhappy adults, people who loathed their jobs, and I didn't want to be one of them.
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I don't know that I'd call myself an optimist.
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Every industry has slack times, and everyone has bad days at work.
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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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I heard somewhere that whenever you write a book, people will ask you One Question about it over and over. And while I'm no expert in these matters, this is proving to be true. My first book dealt with a not-that-pleasant degenerate type, and the One Question was, 'Is this an autobiographical story?'
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I've been surprised at how much an unknown like myself can accomplish just by reaching out to people and pleading my case. Quotes for the book cover, reviews and interviews, readings and radio appearances - all this by simply moving ahead and making contact with folks I thought might enjoy the writing.
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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 am a homebody, something that lends itself to my profession.
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My instinct is to write under the cloak of an opaque historical setting.
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I felt like love has been underrepresented - unironic love, just actually really falling in love.
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A lot of my favourite books - I should say, not much happens in the books! It's much more about the points of view of the author more than anything else.
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By the time I left the bar, I was 30. I was a dishwasher. They call it a bar-back, but essentially, I washed dishes for a living. I had no high-school diploma, I had no agent, and my literary successes were non-existent... but it was the only thing I ever wanted to do, so I did feel trapped.
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When you're 8 years old, and you've become subconsciously familiar with the layout and design of Black Sparrow books, and you know the difference between Miles Davis and John Coltrane, something is bound to stick.
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Certain writers look down their noses at plot, and I think I might have been one of them until I tried it.
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All of my close friends are emotional train wrecks. This is what makes our lives interesting - constantly doubting ourselves, worrying, wondering if we've made a mistake. Could we have done better? Are we good people? Are we bad people?
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All the books I was reading as a teenager were about individuals having adventures. So I thought that was what writers were supposed to do: to go out on the road.
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Whenever we changed schools, we had to make a new set of friends. At the time, of course, I hated it. But looking back now, I'm really glad I did, because it forces independence on you.
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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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After school, I got a job in a shop in Hollywood and shared an apartment with a friend. I promptly lost my job and got evicted from my apartment, and that happened several times.
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Many's the dead author whose body of work has been marred by overzealous publishers or family members. If this happens to me, I vow to seek out the responsible parties and haunt them to the point of death.
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My first book didn't even have a Canadian publisher. And that upset me, because I so wanted a readership up there.