Daniel H. Wilson Quotes

I grew up in North Dakota around Dakota and Ojibwe people, and also small-town people in Wahpeton. Writers make few choices, really, about their material. We have to write about what comes naturally and what interests us - so I do.

With "Margaret," I remember clearly it was, you know because I did remember it clearly. I was young. I was young in terms of experience and what did I know about and I had an incredible memory from my own childhood. And so it never occurred to me to write for any other age group. And I thought I'm going to write a book and I'm going to tell the truth.

Everything I've written is based on something that has happened to me or something that I know a great deal about.

I always tell people, I never get writer's block because it's coming straight from my brain, like, real-life experiences. I'm like the news. I'm just reporting it for myself.

I think it's easier for me to write from experience.

I don't write anything that I hadn't experienced or hadn't been through.

It's easier to write from my own life, and it's also more fun. I always write about relationships, for instance, whether they're romantic relationships, friendships, encounters... there's always a lesson to be learned from them.

I'm not really an autobiographical writer, though I use lots of stuff from my life to make my stories seem real. But when I actually write about myself, I get very confused.

Of course, all writers draw upon their personal experiences in describing day-to-day life and human relationships, but I tend to keep my own experiences largely separate from my stories.

Like most writers, I write about what has happened to me as that involves the minimum amount of research.

I have long hair because I'm American Indian. I'm an Oklahoma boy, and I'm very proud of my heritage.

I write about stuff that happens to me, so I try to live as interesting a life as possible.

I can write with authority only about what I know well, which means that I end up using surface details of my own life in my fiction.

Why my interest in writers? Well, I'm one, and many of my friends are writers. I know what it's like to write. I'm interested in the creative process. I'm fascinated by the disparity between who we are on the outside, and what we have bubbling away inside us.

All my songs come from me because I only seem able to write about myself and my experiences.

I'm always inspired to write, and it's usually my own life experiences that inspire me.

I'd love to work more with the American Indians, my people.

I'm just not that fascinating a person to have had all those lives that I've written about.

So much of my own life inspires what I write. Whether it's work, family, friends, motherhood, I am a writer who tends to write what she knows. In 'Revenge Wears Prada,' a great deal of my own life finds its way into the book.

The Indians are acknowledged to have an unquestionable … right to the lands they occupy.

I came from a family that was pretty insularly Cherokee. We kept to ourselves - the white people were there, and we were here, and it was practically a segregated kind of thing.

I don't believe you just create a character out of thin air, there's always something of yourself you bring.

I write about what happens to me. It's all there. I couldn't do it any other way.

I always pull from something I know really well. Because I would never want to write about something that I hadn't experienced or that I hadn't witnessed happen to somebody else because it wouldn't be genuine.

I'm Native American, so the racial thing kind of hits home with me.