Quotes from Patrick deWitt

The idea is this: It's important to upset one's work habits, to topple the cart for each project.

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.

I don't necessarily want to make people stomp and clap. I simply want to engage people.

When you meet someone you love, whether or not they love you back, something occurs in you that makes you want to improve yourself.

My instinct is to write under the cloak of an opaque historical setting.

One of the nice things about writing is you can take essentially painful things in your life and turn them into something that might be useful, or at least entertaining, to somebody else.

I don't consider Los Angeles home anymore; ultimately, it was pretty negative, but I did spend my formative years in the Valley and all around L.A. proper. Through my teenage years and into my young adulthood, up until the age of 30, I spent a good amount of time there.

I don't know that I'd call myself an optimist.

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.

Love is dangerous; it's not something to be trifled with. As good as it feels on the way in, it feels that much worse on the way out.