Quotes from Patrick deWitt

Unfunny people should be locked up, the key tossed into a smelter.

Why were you feeling low? Why does anyone? It creeps up on you from time to time.

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.

Some deeper part of me wants to write comical dialogue; I'd be foolish to not follow that impulse. Now I recognize that if there's energy to a section of work, you go where the energy is. It's a living thing, and you just follow it.

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?

I've got a publicist at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt who's been working little miracles for me, but it's true the budgets aren't what they once were in terms of advertisement and book tours.

I am increasingly unimpressed by works of art that require a college degree to understand. I think that art should be for everyone. And people should be moved by it.

If you're not riddled with doubt, you've probably done something wrong.

I was halfway through a rough draft of 'The Sisters Brothers' when it came time to start the 'Terri' adaptation.

'The Sisters Brothers' started out as a little bit of dialogue between these two men who became Eli and Charlie Sisters.

After 'The Sisters Brothers,' I tried to write a contemporary story dealing with an investment adviser in New York City who moves to Paris. I did all this research, but after about a year and any number of pages written, I was bored stiff.

Every industry has slack times, and everyone has bad days at work.

I wrote for so many years in a bubble, the way everyone does, and there were large swaths of time where you think you're doing this for nothing. An audience is crucial, a back and forth with the invisible readers.

A lot of authors, judging by their list, will put anything out that they finish... That's the worst model I've heard of in my life. It's just idiotic. Why wouldn't you just wait for the good ones?

At the age of seventeen, I decided I would spend my life writing fiction. I didn't know what this entailed, exactly - a room, I supposed. A room and books and paper and solitude.

More and more, I find myself turning away from everything relating to contemporary society. I don't know how healthy it is, but I am creating a very private bubble that I live in.

I will never be a leader of men, and neither do I want to be one, and neither do I want to be led. I thought: I want to lead only myself.

The initial spark, your affection for the characters, all those things can disappear. It's a perilous thing.

I carry a small spiral notebook with me at all times and have been doing this for many years. There's a shoe box in my closet filled with these notebooks, each riddled with notes and impressions, ideas, schemes, and soup recipes.

Looking around, I saw so many unhappy adults, people who loathed their jobs, and I didn't want to be one of them.

I understand the desire to write and read about the death of publishing. It's a perversely and universally appealing topic.

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.

Often the starting point for characters, for me, is finding a little, most minor detail, and I'll go from there.

I've always felt so fortunate to have writing to turn to every day. I'm obsessed with it.