Poe Ballantine Quotes & Sayings

Because I've lived a risky and unconventional life, I don't often struggle for subjects to write about. — Poe Ballantine

Short chaps evolved naturally, but I didn't title and number them till much later. I like short chaps, like short books too, as a rule. — Poe Ballantine

One evening, after my wife and son had gone out for a walk, I decided to have a talk with my neighbor, who I believe was murdered. I had gotten to know and admire him by listening to people talk about him. He seemed a wonderful person with much to give. — Poe Ballantine

I have learned that I am not built for conflict or controversy. I have also learned that, in all my life, I have never chosen a story. The story has always chosen me. — Poe Ballantine

Western Nebraska is the only place in all my travels where I have seen the dust blowing and the rain falling at the same time. — Poe Ballantine

There's good money in true crime, I'm told, and plenty of it lying around, but it's a devil of an art form. — Poe Ballantine

I first came across Chadron, Nebraska, by accident in 1994. — Poe Ballantine

I'm that sensitive, honest guy who likes people, wants to know why, and who puzzles everyone by continually putting himself in harm's way. — Poe Ballantine

I read to him from his mother's Bible the first line of Genesis: 'In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.' It says nothing about hell, Tom. That came later with the membership drive. — Poe Ballantine

Most people would live in an outhouse in Bangladesh before they would voluntarily move to Nebraska. — Poe Ballantine

Chadron had a water tower, grain elevators, a tanning salon, a video rental store, a small liberal arts college, a Hardee's, a stoplight, and a curling yellow sign in the pet store window that read, 'Hamsters and Tarantulas Featured Today.' — Poe Ballantine

'Love and Terror on the Howling Plains of Nowhere' took me six years to write. — Poe Ballantine

A bilingual marriage, by the way, is a great way to stay together for longer than you normally would because you can't understand each other very well. — Poe Ballantine

I studied a truckload of true crime, praying for illumination, but most true crime relies on luridness and voyeurism for effect. — Poe Ballantine

I'm compared to Kerouac, I suppose, because he traveled and rejected middle-class values, but the similarities end there. — Poe Ballantine

All my life, I never realized you could have a conversation with a ghost. — Poe Ballantine

Amazon is evil, like anything big, but we can't help if it flows the very center of literature. — Poe Ballantine