Donald Ray Pollock Quotes

I'm not sure what the proper label might be, or the most accurate one, but someone once called my stuff Southern Ohio Gothic and I thought that was fair.

I don't really think the outburst is recent; there have always been writers in Appalachia.

One of the reasons I write about religion is due to my own envy of people who truly feel the presence of god in their lives, good souls who believe devoutly in a supreme being and an afterlife.

I started going to Ohio University when I was in my mid-thirties, ended up with an English degree when I was forty.

The humor I came up with is, for the most part, a bit crude or guttural, and many people aren't going to get it or enjoy it, but some do, and that means a lot to me - to know that I made someone laugh.

Nostalgia is partly illusion in that we remember things differently as we get older, etc. But that doesn't mean, when historians look back on the 1950s, say, from the year 2090, it won't be judged as a saner, slower, less narcissistic, more family-focused, and economically secure time.

Though there are still many good people out there in the world, it seems that they're vastly outnumbered by the stupid, selfish, violent ones.

J.R. Angelella is a truly gifted writer. Zombie is one of the smartest, strangest, and most beautifully crafted coming-of-age stories you will ever encounter.

The biggest influence on my writing, besides snagging some ideas about black humor, was that the paper mill had a program where they paid 75 percent of the tuition and book [costs] for employees who wanted to go to college part-time.

I worked in a paper mill all my adult life and there were a lot of funny guys there. So you pick up on that. Even though something really bad might have happened to somebody you can still make a joke out of it.

I was always a big reader, even when everything was bad and miserable.

Some people were born just so they could be buried.

I do believe the world is a pretty sad, troubled, and violent place. Maybe that's why I focus on the trouble. Even though there are good people and good things, there's also a bunch of messed up stuff. And I learned early on, you have to have some trouble in your stories. I definitely go overboard on that, but I have a lot more fun writing about the trouble.

Knockemstiff is a collection of short stories set in the holler of the same name in southern Ohio where I grew up. I tried to link the stories together through the place and some recurring characters.

I think some people at Doubleday worried about that a bit when Knockemstiff came out, but, with the exception of one or two people who complained that I didn't do justice to the many good people who lived in the holler, most of the local objections have been aimed at the violence and foul language.

[Degree in English] gave me a little more self-confidence, to know that I'd managed to complete something like that.

When I started graduate school we did this publishing class where we learned about submitting and read interviews with editors from different magazines. A lot of them said they got so many submissions that unless the first page stuck out or the first paragraph or even the first sentence they'll probably send it back. So part of my idea was that if I have a really good first sentence maybe they'll read on a bit further. At least half, maybe more of the stories in Knockemstiff started with the first sentence; I got it down then went from there.

A lot of people get the wrong impression, think there's something romantic or tragic about hitting bottom.

I look upon [writing about religion] as a nice way to get by in this precarious world, though I've never been able to do it myself.

As for how I feel about any success I've had, I just feel extremely lucky. Writing is a tough racket, and there are a lot of writers out there better than me who can't seem to catch a break.

Unless he had whiskey running through his veins, Willard came to the clearing every morning and evening to talk to God. Arvin didn't know which was worse, the drinking or the praying. As far back as he could remember, it seemed that his father had fought the Devil all the time.

You're always hoping you can attract a bigger audience, but at the same time, I'd hate to give up what I write. If I could write Chick Lit or something like that and make money off it, that'd be great. But I just can't do it.

Probably because I personally knew at least six or seven people in Ross County who died from overdoses in the last three years. The heroin epidemic is just too aggravating and sad and unsettling for even someone like me to live with and think about for the time it would take to write a book dealing with it.

Michael Koryta is an amazingly talented writer, and I rank The Prophet as one of the sharpest and superbly plotted crime novels I've read in my life.

I think the biggest influence on the book, as far as the humor goes, comes, at least indirectly, from the men I worked with in the paper mill. Some of them could make a dog laugh.

I didn't feel that so much as an outsider when I started writing; I've felt that way all my life. I don't know, man; I guess I was just wired wrong. When I was growing up, I always wanted to be somebody else and live somewhere else. I've always felt a little uncomfortable around people. And I'm not trying to romanticize this, because it wasn't romantic. I wasn't trying to be a rebel; I just always felt a little out of it. I think that's why it's pretty easy for me to identify with people living on the margins.

I think my characters - well, at least a few of them - are hoping or searching for some kind of contact with god.

I spent thirty-two years in a paper mill in southern Ohio, and before that I worked in a meatpacking plant and a shoe factory.

I had this bad habit of not writing out a first draft and going back. For me it was the first sentence, then the second sentence, and I might be several weeks on the first page instead of writing a draft and trying to figure it out from there.

I do think they [French] view my writing itself as exotic - though that's probably not the best term for it - to a small extent, mainly because I say things that most French writers would probably hesitate to say for fear of offending someone or upsetting public sensibilities. I don't think that answers the question, but I'm not much good at figuring readers out or I would probably be writing bestsellers.

I don't think I'd call [mood] a major force, but it is important as far as hitting the right notes or nuances with a character or scene.

I remember a class I taught at Ohio State where I assigned a Mary Gaitskill story, which really wasn't that bad, and I had this one girl refuse to read it. But better that reaction than no reaction at all.

The way I saw the characters these things just happened naturally. At the same time - and I know it's probably not apparent when you read the book - but I really tried to hold back because I didn't want it to become a cartoon.

I've always liked reading books that contain funny lines or situations, and maybe because my work is known chiefly for its violence and misery, I made a more conscious attempt with The Heavenly Table to do that myself.

It was really just the name that inspired me: Rainsboro. It's located near Rocky Fork State Park. I have probably driven through that little place a thousand times, but, in that weird way my mind works sometimes, one particular evening it just hit me the right way, I guess. Created a mood more than anything else. And then I started thinking about a woman and her young son who end up there.

I'm trying to break myself of that habit [of not writing out a first draft ] because I'm working on a couple novels and I know if I tried to write those books the way I wrote the stories it would take me years to finish.

I'm not sure I would have ever decided to try to write when I was forty-five if I hadn't already gotten that degree [in English].

It's very easy for me to feel sympathy for people who are messed up. It's not that I'm a pseudo-saint or a great person. I had a lot of trouble with drugs and alcohol when I was younger, and I know how easy it can be to mess up the rest of your life. One bad turn, one bad night, one big mistake, and everything is screwed up. Or maybe you were just born in the wrong house and raised in a bad way. I guess I can understand.

I don't think my book is any more shocking than if I went out right now and brought back your local newspaper and found a story that happened around here yesterday or the day before that's just as shocking as anything in my book.

I really have no idea where the darkness comes from. Other writers have said that there are two subjects worth writing about, love and death; and since I'm a complete flop when it comes to love, I chose death. Too, maybe because of where I came from, I do find it easy to empathise with and write about certain groups of damaged or downtrodden people: the poor, the addicted.

Look, girls don't care how many push-ups you can do. They just want to get high and wear flowers in their hair. Maybe steal a car.

I sort of like writing about weird characters, I guess.

Part of the reason might be that I was born in 1954 and I look upon my youth with great fondness, like many old men. And, though my work doesn't focus much on good things, I see that period as America's heyday. True, we had many problems, like racism and Vietnam, but we still weren't quite as nuts as we seem to be now.

When I turned fifty, I decided to quit the mill and go to graduate school.

The Oxys filled holes in me I hadn't realized were empty. It was, at least for those first few months, a wonderful way to be disabled. I felt blessed.

When I first started out, I was trying to write stories about nurses and lawyers and a lot of people I didn't know anything about, and they just weren't working.

I don't think writing fiction has changed my worldview.

For example, if it's a sad scene, I need to feel that way, at least to a slight degree and for a short while, to get it right. Which is why I sometimes listen to music when I'm revising. Music creates moods for me quicker than any other medium.