Daniel Woodrell

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

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

“I've always been fascinated by the Mississippi River and the way of life in these small river towns.”

“There's an overlap between social-realist fiction and crime fiction - a sweet spot there.”

“We'd been living in the Arkansas Ozarks, then the Missouri Ozarks, because it is so inexpensive and does have natural wonders, but we shuffled things and moved to San Francisco, the corner of Dashiell Hammett and Pine.”

“You want to hear an agent scream, say, 'I'm thinking about doing a collection of short stories set in the Ozarks.'”

“When poetry is on the money, 12 words can slay you. I admire that greatly.”

“When I started to be a writer, I was not going to run the risk of boring you.”

“I guess it's ridiculously romantic, but I wanted to be a full tilt, sink-or-swim writer.”

“I joined the Marines the week I turned 17, and that led to a few experiences that might qualify as adventure - eye of the beholder.”

“I know people who have, until recently, lived with dirt floors. There are people who live way back off the grid, without electricity. Not a whole lot, but quite a few. That's a choice for a lot of them. There might be a religious element in their isolation, at least with some of them.”

“I was born in West Plains, and we lived here till I was one. Then my dad needed to get a job, so we moved to the St. Louis area. I lived in St. Charles, on the Missouri River, till I was 15.”

“Just because it's got a gun doesn't make it a crime novel, and just because there's a horse doesn't make it a western.”

“I realized there might be monetary or financial reasons to jump in and write a 'Winter's Bone Retriumphs' or something, and nobody would object to me doing that in publishing. But it would be a waste of my time, and they always take a little longer than you thought they would take.”

“I can't say that dropping out of school at 16 to join the Marines was my best idea. On the other hand, maybe it was. Who knows?”

“This is how sudden things happened that haunted forever.”

“One of the interesting things about the Ozarks is you just about don't have street crime. It's strictly between people who know each other. It really isn't indiscriminate; it's kind of between themselves.”

“I learned my values. It's better to be poor than to be beholden. Wealth is not the object of life. You should be polite as long as possible, and when you can't be polite anymore, don't run.”

“I think there are some folks who don't particularly like what I have to say, but on the whole, the reaction has been very positive.”

“I'd met some awfully tough gals in my life, and I find them compelling, if I don't have to socialize with them too much.”