140 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 had bill collectors chasing me. We were skipping from town to town, not leaving forwarding addresses. The agent couldn't find me when he sold my book. He finally found me.

I think my grandmother Woodrell was most responsible for my becoming a writer. She wasn't quite literate, but was very proud that she attended school as far as the third grade. She worked as a maid, housekeeper and cook.

I realized there might be monetary or financial reasons to jump in and write a 'Winter's Bone Retriumphs' or something, and nobody would object to me doing that in publishing. But it would be a waste of my time, and they always take a little longer than you thought they would take.

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.

I am well aware that the writers of New York, London, and Toronto are more readily noticed, though the shadowy and potent Ozarks Literary Cabal does what it can for me, then nightly joins me for dinner and calls me 'honey.'

You want to hear an agent scream, say, 'I'm thinking about doing a collection of short stories set in the Ozarks.'

You got to be ready to die every day – then you got a chance.

The heart’s in it then, spinning dreams, and torment is on the way. The heart makes dreams seem like ideas.