Daniel Woodrell Quotes

Long, dark, and lovely she had been, in those days before her mind broke and the parts scattered and she let them go.

Never. Never ask for what ought to be offered.

The heart makes dreams seem like ideas.

He unscrewed the lid, set it on the dash, snorted from the bottle twice, banged the steering wheel, and said, 'You got to be ready to die every day - then you got a chance.'

Fading light buttered the ridges until shadows licked them clean and they were lost to nightfall.

Gail had a baby named Ned who was four months old, and a new look of baffled hurt, a left-behind sadness, like she saw that the great world kept spinning onward and away while she'd overnight become glued to her spot.

This is how sudden things happened that haunted forever.

Pine trees with low limbs spread over fresh snow made a stronger vault for the spirit than pews and pulpits ever could.

For a long time, I thought you could remain isolated and survive, and I didn't want to change that. But over the last three or four books, I've become more comfortable with the idea that I'm not really throwing anything away by being a bit more open about my books and life.

A person has to show some spirit -- fate just about never shines on chickenshits.

But I've been at writing long enough now to know that every three or four books I have to start a new direction.

It's not always to the benefit of the story to have it so preordained.

I was not much used to women except for mothers. Everything I did, they did different.

I'm not one of these people who thinks everyone born into privilege should wear sack cloth and ashes. But it's something I wrestle with. I know a lot of people who live below the poverty level and have for a long time and it makes them uneasy to think they'll have to interact with people from different economic levels. Everyone has some sort of load put on them, whatever the circumstances they're born into.

The opening novel of the 'Bayou Trilogy' was the first one I finished.

I've bumped into at least three people in town who all insist 'Winter's Bone' is about them.

I felt like a number of things in me as a writer just clicked.