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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.
Donald Ray Pollock
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Donald Ray Pollock
Age: 69
Born: 1954
Born: December 23
Novelist
Writer
Knockemstiff
Ohio
Stories
Lawyers
Anything
Nurse
Firsts
Weren
First
Lawyer
Writing
Started
Trying
Working
People
Write
Didn
Nurses
More quotes by Donald Ray Pollock
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.
Donald Ray Pollock
A lot of people get the wrong impression, think there's something romantic or tragic about hitting bottom.
Donald Ray Pollock
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].
Donald Ray Pollock
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.
Donald Ray Pollock
When I turned fifty, I decided to quit the mill and go to graduate school.
Donald Ray Pollock
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.
Donald Ray Pollock
I took a correspondence course with a guy at Ohio University. He gave me ten exercises, and one of them resulted in the story Bactine. It pleased me a lot more than anything else I'd ever done, so I kept messing around and by the time I got to Ohio State I'd written maybe eight stories.
Donald Ray Pollock
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.
Donald Ray Pollock
I don't think writing fiction has changed my worldview.
Donald Ray Pollock
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.
Donald Ray Pollock
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.
Donald Ray Pollock
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.
Donald Ray Pollock
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.
Donald Ray Pollock
I think my characters - well, at least a few of them - are hoping or searching for some kind of contact with god.
Donald Ray Pollock
I was always a big reader, even when everything was bad and miserable.
Donald Ray Pollock
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.
Donald Ray Pollock
I sort of like writing about weird characters, I guess.
Donald Ray Pollock
I don't really think the outburst is recent there have always been writers in Appalachia.
Donald Ray Pollock
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.
Donald Ray Pollock
I'm beginning to believe that anything I do to extend my life is just going to be outweighed by the agony of living it.
Donald Ray Pollock
