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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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Donald Ray Pollock
Age: 70
Born: 1954
Born: December 23
Novelist
Writer
Knockemstiff
Ohio
Made
Maybe
Attempt
Always
Situation
Table
Books
Tables
Reading
Liked
Known
Misery
Chiefly
Funny
Conscious
Contain
Book
Violence
Situations
Work
Lines
Heavenly

More quotes by Donald Ray Pollock

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I don't think writing fiction has changed my worldview.
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'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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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
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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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J.R. Angelella is a truly gifted writer. Zombie is one of the smartest, strangest, and most beautifully crafted coming-of-age stories you will ever encounter.
Donald Ray Pollock
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You're always hoping you can attract a bigger audience, but at the same time, I'd hate to give up what I write. If I could write Chick Lit or something like that and make money off it, that'd be great. But I just can't do it.
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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I don't really think the outburst is recent there have always been writers in Appalachia.
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'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
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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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Religion can be a good thing, but basically the way I look at it is that it provides a moral code, common sense. But then people distort it and use it as an excuse to be a bully. It's sad, but that's the way it's worked for a several thousand years now.
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 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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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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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'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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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 sort of like writing about weird characters, I guess.
Donald Ray Pollock