Patrick DeWitt Quotes & Sayings

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

He makes good time for a hysterical man on foot. — Patrick DeWitt

I'm never doing anything by rote. I'm only on thin ice, and I think that that's a good place to be. I feel like when you push yourself like that, the rewards can be pretty great. — Patrick DeWitt

I haven't read hardly any Westerns, to tell you the truth. — Patrick DeWitt

Most people are chained to their own fear and stupidity and haven't the sense to level a cold eye at just what is wrong with their lives. Most people will continue on, dissatisfied but never attempting to understand why, or how they might change things for the better, and they die with nothing in their hearts but dirt and old, thin blood - weak blood, diluted - and their memories aren't worth a goddamned thing. — Patrick DeWitt

You return to your car and find a note on the windshield: 'where did you go?' the note is not signed and the love in your heart is gone. It feels as if it was never there at all. — 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 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. — Patrick DeWitt

When you're 8 years old, and you've become subconsciously familiar with the layout and design of Black Sparrow books, and you know the difference between Miles Davis and John Coltrane, something is bound to stick. — Patrick DeWitt

You always bring God into arguments you know you're losing, for the liar is lonely, and welcomes all manner of company. — Patrick DeWitt

Walking away on the springy legs of a foal he thought, How remarkable a thing a lie is. He wondered if it wasn't man's finest achievement, and after some consideration, he decided it was. — 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

Sturdiness, wariness, fatigue, but also an energy or glow
something like the center of a low flame, Is this what they call charisma? I do not know, exactly, except to say that Warm was more THERE than the average man. — Patrick DeWitt

I was halfway through a rough draft of 'The Sisters Brothers' when it came time to start the 'Terri' adaptation. — Patrick DeWitt

This moment, this one position in time, was the happiest I will ever be as long as I am living. I have since felt it was too happy, that men are not meant to have access to this kind of satisfaction; certainly it has tempered every moment of happiness I have experienced since. — Patrick DeWitt

I sighed. 'It doesn't matter what we do. Money comes and goes.' I shook my head. 'It doesn't matter and you know it doesn't. — Patrick DeWitt

This marked the end of our toothbrush conversation. — Patrick DeWitt

There is a feeling here, which if it gets you, will envenom your very center. It is a madness of possibilities. — Patrick DeWitt

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

Hurried business is bad business. — Patrick DeWitt

I am happy to welcome you to a town peopled in morons exclusively. Furthermore, I hope that your transformation to moron is not an unpleasant experience. — Patrick DeWitt

I will try to be happy, you think, and your heart and chest feel a plummeting, as in the case of the hurtling rollercoaster, and your heart wants to cry and sob, but you, not wanting to cry, hit yourself hard in the center of your chest and it hurts so much but you drive on, your face dry and remaining dry, though it had been a close call, after all. — Patrick DeWitt

I'm done talking about your horse, Eli.' 'If you think it will not come up again, you are mistaken. — Patrick DeWitt

I was often forced to whip him, which some men do not mind doing and which in fact some enjoy doing, but which I did not like to do; and afterward he, Tub, believes me cruel and thought to himself, Sad life, sad life. — Patrick DeWitt

I don't know that happy people are interesting to write about - or to read about. — Patrick DeWitt

If you're not riddled with doubt, you've probably done something wrong. — Patrick DeWitt

He is not bad, I don't think. Perhaps he is simply too lazy to be good. — Patrick DeWitt

It would seem to me that the solitude of working in the wilds is not healthy for a man. — Patrick DeWitt

After school, I got a job in a shop in Hollywood and shared an apartment with a friend. I promptly lost my job and got evicted from my apartment, and that happened several times. — Patrick DeWitt

You put a wage behind something, it gives the act a sort of respectability. — Patrick DeWitt

It is a glory and a torment. — Patrick DeWitt

I lay in the dark thinking about the difficulties of family, how crazy and crooked the stories of a bloodline can be. — Patrick DeWitt

The Baron folded the letter and set it upon the side table. "All I know, boy, is that life is, on occasion, entirely too vast for my tastes." Here he submerged himself, and afterward did a great many bubbles rise up from the depths of the bathtub, this due to the fact of the Baron screaming underwater. — Patrick DeWitt

I do not know what it was about that boy but just looking at him, even I wanted to clout him on the head. It was a head that invited violence. — 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

Here is another miserable mental image I will have to catalog and make room for. — Patrick DeWitt

'The Sisters Brothers' started out as a little bit of dialogue between these two men who became Eli and Charlie Sisters. — Patrick DeWitt

I felt a premonitory concern they would never revisit it. — Patrick DeWitt

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. — Patrick DeWitt

when I see you, I feel the same. It is when I am away that I lose myself. — 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

Humorous writing is often thought of as substandard in comparison to work with a more dramatic or tragic intent. I don't know what to say to this except that I disagree wholeheartedly. — 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

I think of myself as somebody who, in a moment-to-moment way, I'm quite happy. But I think I am a bit doubtful and wary of true happiness, and, like a lot of my friends, there's been a good degree of self-sabotage. — 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

I don't suppose I have a choice.'
'As with so many things in a life, brother, I don't suppose you do. — Patrick DeWitt

I heard somewhere that whenever you write a book, people will ask you One Question about it over and over. And while I'm no expert in these matters, this is proving to be true. My first book dealt with a not-that-pleasant degenerate type, and the One Question was, 'Is this an autobiographical story?' — Patrick DeWitt

Peter was rapt. He tilted his head to better study the stranger before him, and presently issued a hesitant, hoarse croak in the minor key. There followed a dense silence where neither Lucy nor Mr. Olderglough drew a breath, and then, finally, Peter sang his long-lost tune. It came out in purling currents, as though his keeping it in had been an agony. Peter sang to his reflection, sang a love song to himself, for he was no longer alone, and the world was filled with unmapped possibilities. — Patrick DeWitt

'The Sisters Brothers' has endeared so many prize juries because the Western format has more of a broad appeal and is familiar to readers. — Patrick DeWitt

I thought, Perhaps a man is never meant to be truly happy. Perhaps there is no such a thing in our world, after all. As — 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 have a paranoia that 'Ablutions' is the best thing I'll ever do. — Patrick DeWitt

In the end I decided to hold onto the book, my thought being that his story was a unique one, and so best to keep his words aboveground where they might be shared and admired. — Patrick DeWitt

I carry a small spiral notebook with me at all times and have been doing this for many years. There's a shoe box in my closet filled with these notebooks, each riddled with notes and impressions, ideas, schemes, and soup recipes. — Patrick DeWitt

I saw my bulky person in the windows of the passing storefronts and wondered, when will that man there find himself to be loved? — 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'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

He blinks and says that there are two types of people: Those who want to cry, and those who are crying already and want to stop. — Patrick DeWitt

This perhaps was what lay at the root of the hysteria surrounding what came to be known as the Gold Rush: Men desiring a feeling of fortune; the unlucky masses hoping to skin or borrow the luck of others, or the luck of a destination. A seductive notion, and one I thought to be wary of. To me, luck was something you either earned or invented through strength of character. You had to come by it honestly; you could not trick or bluff your way into it. — Patrick DeWitt

I find the constant upkeep of the body woefully fatiguing, don't you? — 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

When you meet someone you love, whether or not they love you back, something occurs in you that makes you want to improve yourself. — Patrick DeWitt

Returning his pen to its holder, he told us, 'I will have him gutted with that scythe. I will hang him by his own intestines.' At this piece of dramatic exposition, I could not hep but roll my eyes. A length of intestines would not carry the weight of a child, much less a full grown man. — Patrick DeWitt

I kept trying to write these books that were sort of outside of my realm, and I kept failing. — 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

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

By the time I left the bar, I was 30. I was a dishwasher. They call it a bar-back, but essentially, I washed dishes for a living. I had no high-school diploma, I had no agent, and my literary successes were non-existent ... but it was the only thing I ever wanted to do, so I did feel trapped. — Patrick DeWitt

But I could not sleep without proper covering and spent the rest of the night rewriting lost arguments from my past, altering history so that I emerged victorious. — Patrick DeWitt

Why were you feeling low?' 'Why does anyone? It creeps up on you from time to time. — Patrick DeWitt

and that Eli, is how you got your freckles — Patrick DeWitt

My flesh and scalp started to ring and tingle and I became someone other than myself, or I became my second self, and this person was highly pleased to be stepping from the murk and into the living world where he might do just as he wished. — Patrick DeWitt

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

Many's the dead author whose body of work has been marred by overzealous publishers or family members. If this happens to me, I vow to seek out the responsible parties and haunt them to the point of death. — Patrick DeWitt

One night, after hours, you are alone and running your hands under the hot water when the voice asks if you aren't through with your ablutions yet. You do not know the word but write it down to look it up the next day. You learn its definition on page 3 of Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary: "The washing of one's body or part of it (as in a religious rite)." You are certain you have never heard this word before as you were raised without any religion and have never set foot inside any church or temple, and you return the dictionary to the shelf and vow never to play this game of counting your wounds again. — Patrick DeWitt

When your protagonist bores you, you're in trouble. — Patrick DeWitt

Despite Tub's eye wound he never so much as stumbled, and I felt for the first time that we knew and understood each other; I sensed in him a desire to improve himself, which perhaps was whimsy or wishful thinking on my part, but such are the musings of the traveling man. The — Patrick DeWitt

When you sleep, your dreams are those of a dullard — Patrick DeWitt

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. — Patrick DeWitt

Beware of the plygs of Colorado City, Arizona. They have no cups of coffee for the likes of you. — Patrick DeWitt

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

He wandered here and there over rolling hills.
He never saw the ocean but
dreamed of it often enough. — Patrick DeWitt

Your laughter is like cool water to me," I said. I felt my heart sob at these strange words, and it would not have been hard to summon tears: Strange. " "You are so serious all of a sudden," she told me. "I am not any one thing," I said. (137) — Patrick DeWitt

I will never be a leader of men, and neither do I want to be one, and neither do I want to be led. I thought: I want to lead only myself. — Patrick DeWitt

I look upon my past with disgrace. I was herded and instructed. But I will be herded and instructed no more. Today I am born anew, and my life will become my own again. It will be different ever after. — Patrick DeWitt

I cannot understand the motivation of a bully, is what it is; this is the one thing that makes me unreasonable. I — Patrick DeWitt

All you will get from me is death. — Patrick DeWitt

Your skin is prickly from fatigue and pain and there is a hissing in your ears. Time passes and the pills are taking hold like a glowing white planet coming into view. A reverse eclipse. And you watch with your eyes closed. The white planet is half exposed, it grips your heart in its light and seems to be pulling you forward and now you feel that you are falling. You are awake but dreaming. "The earth is not beautiful but the universe is," you say. — Patrick DeWitt

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. — Patrick DeWitt

The creak of bed springs suffering under the weight of a restless man is as lonely a sound as I know. — 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

He only wished to fight and cultivate an anger toward me, thus alleviating his guilt, but I would not abet him in this. — 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

Things I had come to find humor in would make your honest man swoon. — Patrick DeWitt

That is to say, nine dead beavers in a line on the sand. There was something decorative about this, but also ominous or forbidding. — Patrick DeWitt

There is nothing typical about my profession.' Suddenly I did not want to talk about it any longer. 'I don't want to talk about it any longer. — Patrick DeWitt

I understand the desire to write and read about the death of publishing. It's a perversely and universally appealing topic. — Patrick DeWitt

And yet he held his tongue, wanting his farewell with Marina to be peaceable, not out of any magnanimity, but so that after Tor ruined her - he felt confident Tor would ruin her - and she was once more alone, she would think of Lucy's graciousness and feel the long-lingering sting of bitter regret. — 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

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