Quotes from Patrick deWitt

I had no plan to write a western novel, and when I realized it was happening, I was pretty surprised by it. But you have to go with what feels right.

The impetus for 'The Sisters Brothers' was it occurred to me that there was no neurosis in westerns, or there's a minimal amount of it.

I haven't read a lot of Westerns. But I wrote a Western. The influences were all cinematic.

I haven't read hardly any Westerns, to tell you the truth.

I am a homebody, something that lends itself to my profession.

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.

I've fallen in love in my life a few times. It's the most exciting part of being alive - that I've experienced, anyway.

I felt like love has been underrepresented - unironic love, just actually really falling in love.

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.

When your protagonist bores you, you're in trouble.

Humorous writing is often thought of as substandard in comparison to work with a more dramatic or tragic intent. I don't know what to say to this except that I disagree wholeheartedly.

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.

I'm either enjoying myself or I'm not. And if I'm not enjoying myself, something's gone terribly wrong.

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?'

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.

The theme of luck comes up a lot. It's something I thought about before, why some people are lucky and some people aren't lucky. It seems like some people you meet can sort of cultivate luck, and I've always been fascinated by that.

I know a lot of people who use the Internet really wisely. It enriches their lives in some way.

I'm never doing anything by rote. I'm only on thin ice, and I think that that's a good place to be. I feel like when you push yourself like that, the rewards can be pretty great.

It is true, I thought. I am living a life.

Lies can be wonderful things, and when a lie is told artfully, if it's done with a degree of craftsmanship, I can't help but admire the liar.

I kept trying to write these books that were sort of outside of my realm, and I kept failing.

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.

I don't know that happy people are interesting to write about - or to read about.

Working in a bar was a horrific idea for me.