Looking around, I saw so many unhappy adults, people who loathed their jobs, and I didn’t want to be one of them. – Patrick deWitt
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. – Patrick deWitt
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. – Patrick deWitt
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. – Patrick deWitt
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. – Patrick deWitt
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. – Patrick deWitt
I don’t necessarily want to make people stomp and clap. I simply want to engage people. – Patrick deWitt
I am a bit prudish, I think. It’s hard for me to write about sex, and I don’t really care to read about it, either. – Patrick deWitt
I know a lot of people who use the Internet really wisely. It enriches their lives in some way. – Patrick deWitt
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. – Patrick deWitt
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. – Patrick deWitt
Often the starting point for characters, for me, is finding a little, most minor detail, and I’ll go from there. – Patrick deWitt
I’m either enjoying myself or I’m not. And if I’m not enjoying myself, something’s gone terribly wrong. – Patrick deWitt
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. – Patrick deWitt
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. – Patrick deWitt
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. – Patrick deWitt
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? – Patrick deWitt
The nice thing about writing at home is that it’s almost as though I’m doing it already. I get out of bed thinking of my work, and I don’t have to go anywhere to do it. – Patrick deWitt
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. – Patrick deWitt
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. – Patrick deWitt
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. – 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. – Patrick deWitt
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. – Patrick deWitt
My first book didn’t even have a Canadian publisher. And that upset me, because I so wanted a readership up there. – Patrick deWitt
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. – Patrick deWitt
I was halfway through a rough draft of ‘The Sisters Brothers’ when it came time to start the ‘Terri’ adaptation. – Patrick deWitt
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? – Patrick deWitt
