Joe R. Lansdale Quotes

I never work from an outline, and often I don't know how the story will end.

I never plan my novels because if I know what is going to happen, it bores me rigid. I let the story tell itself.

I never map things out in advance. It would be better if I did and more economical in terms of time, but I've found that if you work out a plot line from beginning to end, at the beginning it becomes very rational.

I prefer to surprise myself as I'm writing. I'm not interested in it if I already know where it's going. So I have only the most general sense of what I'm doing when I start a story. I sometimes have a destination in mind, but how the story is going to go from Point A to Point Z is something I make up as I go along.

I don't outline at all; I don't find it useful, and I don't like the way it boxes me in. I like the element of surprise and spontaneity, of letting the story find its own way.

Sometimes the character will go into a completely different direction than I expected once the cameras start rolling. That's what I love about what I do.

I start with a character and a situation, but I don't know what's going to happen until I write it. Sometimes things happen that surprise me.

Shooting should not be about delivering something I've prepared; it should be a live process of finding things out. When things happen that you haven't planned, that's when the film comes alive.

I like to let each thing happen - direct it a little consciously, maybe - but just kind of follow the vibrations I get in each particular circumstance. We don't plan theatrics. We hardly ever know which set we'll play.

I usually know where I want to end up when I begin, but I have no idea how I'm going to get there... I don't write with an outline, and surprises happen on the way, and sometimes it changes.

The way I write is very much without kind of a goal. I have something I'm interested in and then I decide I'm going to explore it. I don't know where the characters are going to go, I don't know what the movie is going to do or what the screenplay is going to do. For me, that's the way to keep it alive.

I like to sit down every day and not know where the book is going. I have no idea where the book is going to go or how it's going to end as I'm writing it.

I don't plan an awful lot in life just as I don't plan an awful lot in my fiction.

It's so funny when you're actually directing because things start popping that you don't expect to pop, and something that you think is going to pop, maybe doesn't quite have the impetus that you thought it might.

I never make notes; just a few small details when I'm writing, but nothing much. The plot is never written down. I will tell the story to myself, but I won't plan it. I'll speak the narrative in my head for a while.

I do not see myself, I never make plans, I never set goals, and I never do that kind of stuff; I don't like to futurize, I barely know what I will do tomorrow, and because there is a working plan here, I've never futurized because life always surprises me with things even better.

I write sentence to sentence. That's the kind of writer I am. I don't have a plot when I begin. I have to be convinced and I have to be surprised.

I never have taken a picture I've intended. They're always better or worse.

The great thing about being an actor is things happen to you very quickly. I like to put myself in the way of surprise.

I never had any master plan about directing, and I don't really write.

The hardest thing is that I never do anything the same way twice, and when I'm on the air, I'm very unscripted, and I'm very comfortable in that role. So me being scripted is not a comfortable place for me.

I tend to plan as I write. And I want to leave myself open and the character open to keep on going until it seems to be the time to stop.

I never know what's going to happen in a novel. I don't have a plan or an outline.

It's so cliche, but I love the feeling you get from improv that anything can happen. The audience is already accepting that there are no props or costumes or furniture, so the performers can be anywhere doing anything; cut from underground to space, and it doesn't matter.

I'm not like J.K. Rowling, where I know there's going to be this number of seasons, and I know exactly what's going to happen. I would be so bored if that was the case. There would be no journey. There would be nothing to discover.