Quotes from Daniel Woodrell

I was thinking of my father's family. I can find their graves, but not that much about them. They didn't do anything notable enough to be in the records of newspapers.

I think there are some folks who don't particularly like what I have to say, but on the whole, the reaction has been very positive.

We'd been living in the Arkansas Ozarks, then the Missouri Ozarks, because it is so inexpensive and does have natural wonders, but we shuffled things and moved to San Francisco, the corner of Dashiell Hammett and Pine.

I was born in West Plains, and we lived here till I was one. Then my dad needed to get a job, so we moved to the St. Louis area. I lived in St. Charles, on the Missouri River, till I was 15.

I guess it's ridiculously romantic, but I wanted to be a full tilt, sink-or-swim writer.

For a long time, I didn't think I wanted to live in the Ozarks or write about the region. It seemed to be a sure recipe for obscurity, and to be obscure was not my conscious ambition.

I always gravitate towards anything from Ireland. With Irish lit, I love the use of language, but also in many instances, the Irish writers are writing about people and circumstances that I can relate to.

I think my grandmother Woodrell was most responsible for my becoming a writer. She wasn't quite literate, but was very proud that she attended school as far as the third grade. She worked as a maid, housekeeper and cook.

I am well aware that the writers of New York, London, and Toronto are more readily noticed, though the shadowy and potent Ozarks Literary Cabal does what it can for me, then nightly joins me for dinner and calls me 'honey.'

I know people who have, until recently, lived with dirt floors. There are people who live way back off the grid, without electricity. Not a whole lot, but quite a few. That's a choice for a lot of them. There might be a religious element in their isolation, at least with some of them.

Most of my characters aren't hillbillies anyway. Let's just call them proletariat with a disposition towards criminal activity.

I've always been fascinated by the Mississippi River and the way of life in these small river towns.

Pine trees with low limbs spread over fresh snow made a stronger vault for the spirit than pews and pulpits ever could.

I can't say that dropping out of school at 16 to join the Marines was my best idea. On the other hand, maybe it was. Who knows?

The opening novel of the 'Bayou Trilogy' was the first one I finished.

I'd met some awfully tough gals in my life, and I find them compelling, if I don't have to socialize with them too much.

I had bill collectors chasing me. We were skipping from town to town, not leaving forwarding addresses. The agent couldn't find me when he sold my book. He finally found me.

If you don't allow yourself to change from book to book - take chances - it turns into a dullish job with no health benefits or pension plan and only intermittent paychecks.

I just really like the verve and muscle of good crime fiction, the narrative punch of it. The underlying principle of good crime fiction is an insistence on a kind of root democracy. I've always responded to that notion.

I've been at writing long enough now to know that every three or four books, I have to start a new direction.

But I've been at writing long enough now to know that every three or four books I have to start a new direction.

You realize you're alive while you're alive, and you better notice it then, because later, it's hard to see.

I have always loved short stories. I have been at least as influenced by the short story masters as I have been by novelists.

Earned a bachelor's at 27, then an M.F.A. that is still completely unused and in mint condition, never taken out of the box.