Quotes from Patrick deWitt

I have a paranoia that 'Ablutions' is the best thing I'll ever do.

I was reading my son some fables; it made for good nighttime reading. These stories were very vivid and very strange and occasionally bizarrely violent. It was a very free landscape.

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.

I come by writing dialogue fairly naturally, I've got a chatty family; I'm a bit of a voyeur, and if I'm ever in a public place, I automatically find myself listening.

It's healthy to have interests besides books.

I think of myself as somebody who, in a moment-to-moment way, I'm quite happy. But I think I am a bit doubtful and wary of true happiness, and, like a lot of my friends, there's been a good degree of self-sabotage.

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.

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.

The reason I like Portland is the idea of going to a supermarket and knowing there's no way to be recognized. L.A. is so social.

If I were to continue to work in an established mode, it stands to reason the work would be limited by this - that it would never surpass the prior work in quality.

I saw my bulky person in the windows of the passing storefronts and wondered, when will that man there find himself to be loved?

I thought, When a man is properly drunk it is as though he is an a room by himself--there is a physical, impenetrable separation between him and his fellows.

...things I had come to find humor in would make your honest man swoon.

Where is your mother, Charlie asked. Dead. I'm sorry to hear that Thank you. But she was always dead.

Some wear greed as a fine suit of clothes. But you, my son, bear its stamp ever more poorly.

...I am happy to welcome you to a town peopled in morons exclusively. Furthermore, I hope that your transformation to moron is not an unpleasant experience.

Come with me into the world and reclaim your independence. You stand to gain so much, and riches are the least of it.

I've stopped reading about the death of books because it's wasteful and morbid and insulting to the authors, agents, publishers, booksellers, critics, and readers that keep the world community of fiction interesting.

Certain writers look down their noses at plot, and I think I might have been one of them until I tried it.

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.

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.

Bernie Madoff is probably more nuanced then I'm giving him credit for, but I just couldn't get under his skin.

As a reader I want to be present and entertained. I don't want to be taught lessons, and I don't want to be spoken down to. I want to be treated as a peer and to be made to feel welcome.

'The Sisters Brothers' has endeared so many prize juries because the Western format has more of a broad appeal and is familiar to readers.