139 Quotes by Patrick deWitt

I am a homebody, something that lends itself to my profession.

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.

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.

I have a paranoia that 'Ablutions' is the best thing I'll ever do.

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.

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.

I'm either enjoying myself or I'm not. And if I'm not enjoying myself, something's gone terribly wrong.

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.

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?