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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
Firsts
Weren
First
Lawyer
Writing
Started
Trying
Working
People
Write
Didn
Nurses
Stories
Lawyers
Anything
Nurse

More quotes by Donald Ray Pollock

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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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I don't think writing fiction has changed my worldview.
Donald Ray Pollock
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I sort of like writing about weird characters, I guess.
Donald Ray Pollock
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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
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When I turned fifty, I decided to quit the mill and go to graduate school.
Donald Ray Pollock
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Look, girls don't care how many push-ups you can do. They just want to get high and wear flowers in their hair. Maybe steal a car.
Donald Ray Pollock
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I've never heard of that anthology [Vance Randolph, Pissing in the Snow], but you can be sure I'll buy it now.
Donald Ray Pollock
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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
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I'm always doubting my work, even when people are kind enough to say good things. I still have a hard time believing I've written some books, let alone that they've actually done pretty well.
Donald Ray Pollock
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A lot of people get the wrong impression, think there's something romantic or tragic about hitting bottom.
Donald Ray Pollock
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I guess music is the one universal art form that most people can be moved by, regardless of where they come from, and for many it might be the closest they get to god, but I think taking a trip out into the country, away from the light pollution, and looking at a clear night sky is what does it best for me.
Donald Ray Pollock
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I'm not sure what the proper label might be, or the most accurate one, but someone once called my stuff Southern Ohio Gothic and I thought that was fair.
Donald Ray Pollock
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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
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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