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" 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. "

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" I've fallen in love in my life a few times. It's the most exciting part of being alive - that I've experienced, anyway. "

Patrick deWitt

Life

Most

My Life

" 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. "

" At the age of seventeen, I decided I would spend my life writing fiction. I didn't know what this entailed, exactly - a room, I supposed. A room and books and paper and solitude. "

" I wouldn't want to write a biography of anyone. I'd feel too inhibited by the facts and too much pressure to do the subject's life justice. "

" The initial spark, your affection for the characters, all those things can disappear. It's a perilous thing. "

" 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. "

" I've stopped reading about the death of books because it's wasteful and morbid and insulting to the authors, agents, publishers, booksellers, critics, and readers that keep the world community of fiction interesting. "

" 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. "

" I've got a publicist at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt who's been working little miracles for me, but it's true the budgets aren't what they once were in terms of advertisement and book tours. "

Patrick deWitt

True

Book

" 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. "

" Whenever we changed schools, we had to make a new set of friends. At the time, of course, I hated it. But looking back now, I'm really glad I did, because it forces independence on you. "

" Especially if you're endeavouring daily to write your own books, you read with a degree of - well, it's hard to forget you're a writer when you're reading. "

" The reason I like Portland is the idea of going to a supermarket and knowing there's no way to be recognized. L.A. is so social. "

Patrick deWitt

Knowing

Going

" As a reader I want to be present and entertained. I don't want to be taught lessons, and I don't want to be spoken down to. I want to be treated as a peer and to be made to feel welcome. "

" 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. "

" 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

Road

Thought

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" 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

Right

You

" A lot of my favourite books - I should say, not much happens in the books! It's much more about the points of view of the author more than anything else. "

Patrick deWitt

View

Books

" If I were to continue to work in an established mode, it stands to reason the work would be limited by this - that it would never surpass the prior work in quality. "

" I know a lot of people who use the Internet really wisely. It enriches their lives in some way. "

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

" Unfunny people should be locked up, the key tossed into a smelter. "

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

" If you're not riddled with doubt, you've probably done something wrong. "

" I'm not an enormous proponent of plot as a reader. It's about other things; my reading has become specialized over the years. "

" I felt like love has been underrepresented - unironic love, just actually really falling in love. "