Joe R. Lansdale Quotes

For me, it would be pointless to write a novel that I knew I could complete within a specific length of time. I could do that only by repeating something I had done before, and I've never wanted to do that.

I don't write about things that I have the answers to or things that are very close to home. It just wouldn't be any adventure. It wouldn't have any vitality.

I like to write books where I get a question on the radio, and I don't have an answer for it.

The old adage is, 'Write what you know.' But if you only do that, your work becomes claustrophobic. I say, 'Write what you want to know.'

There is a plethora of topics to explore. I sometimes think I may never live long enough to explore all of the unique story lines I have either in my head or waiting in my computer file.

I can create countries just as I can create the actions of my characters. That is why a lot of travel seems to me a waste of time.

Nothing much interested me other than playing with language and telling stories and doing something with the wonders of the world around me.

I hate thinking about writer's block! I don't have writer's block much, knock on wood, but if I do, I think it's usually because I haven't done enough research and am therefore unable to create a fully realized world.

If I knew a story page by page before I started writing it, I just wouldn't do it. The process of discovery is really important for my own enjoyment.

The ability of writers to imagine what is not the self, to familiarize the strange and mystify the familiar, is the test of their power.

As long as there are things to wonder about, there are stories to be written about them. That makes me happy, because writing about things seems to be my thing.

All the things worth writing about are outside me. I'm a lens, not a source. And even if it's not always a comfortable journey, it's always a stimulating one.

Good fiction is about asserting the beauties of the world, inventing a new, positive thing. Where am I going to get that? And it should be original; it should not be cliched. So the way I looked at history was not to accuse it of failure.

It is, in fact, nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry

I'm constantly surprised by human nature and humanity. And I think that's why I love what I do: because I love to story-tell and bring new characters to life.

Writing is such a good thing to do because you can't really get bored with it. If you're bored with writing, you're bored with life.

I look for stories everywhere.

I think the most rewarding part for me is kind of not knowing where the story's going next, and then finding out and being blown away by it.

The element of surprise is the most important thing and what keeps me interested in writing. I can feel it if I've written that predictable or boring line, and I will carry that around with me all day.

Writing will be like a journey, every word a footstep that takes me further into undiscovered land.

Find the key emotion; this may be all you need know to find your short story.

If a writer stops observing, he is finished.

Readers would email me and say, 'Please write a novel about so-and-so,' but it has to come from yourself and not so much from your readership.

I try not to repeat a story. I try not to repeat an emotion. I want it to be all sort of new for the viewers and to challenge myself as a writer, so there's always pressure. What else can you come up with?

I have a bad tendency to get rapidly bored with my own material, so rewriting is hard for me. I mean, I already know the story and would rather read something new.