Explore Quotes by Daniel Woodrell

I remember all the writers I started with who I was embarrassed to be around - they were so much better than me. A lot of them are no longer writing. I guess they were better rounded and had other options. Due to social discomfort, I only had the one road.

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

As a high-school drop-out, I knew I wanted to write, but I wasn't overly confident that I was going to be writing anything serious. I was happy enough with the idea that I could be a penny-a-word guy and survive.

I had gone to enlist in the Navy, but they had a long waiting list and no need for high-school dropouts.

I don't want to be callous about it, but we all seemed to get over the Oklahoma bombing pretty quickly, and we're never going to get over 9/11.

I like the idea of everybody knowing each other; you know why you're doing things.

I was basically raised to look for chances to get even with several families for stuff that happened 30 or 40 years before I was born.

My father was a salesman, and I always said I wouldn't be one.

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'm very attracted to poetry for all the reasons someone likes poetry. The notion of compression seems to fit my personality.

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

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

I have a Ford Taurus, and I don't care who knows it.

I think all regions have had their peculiarities of speech rounded off by television, radio, and people travel so much more now.

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

I rise near dawn, make a strong cup of coffee, wander to my desk and come fully awake by reading something written the day before.

I came back when I'd had a taste of other places and realized that I would never feel the same sense of connection to any place other than the Ozarks.

The town of St. Charles near St. Louis was founded by a trapper named Blanchette. There is a section that's called Frenchtown on historical markers.

One of the interesting things about the Ozarks is you just about don't have street crime. It's strictly between people who know each other. It really isn't indiscriminate; it's kind of between themselves.

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.