I'm not sure what the proper label might be, or the most accurate one, but someone once called … - Donald Ray Pollock

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The Attic warbler pours her throat, Responsive to the cuckoo's note, The untaught harmony of spring.

Donald Ray Pollock

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.

Accurate, Label, Labels, Ohio, Southern, Thought

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Probably because I personally knew at least six or seven people in Ross County who died from overdoses in the last three years. The heroin epidemic is just too aggravating and sad and unsettling for even someone like me to live with and think about for the time it would take to write a book dealing with it.

Book, Heroin, Like, Overdoses, Thinking, Writing

I'm trying to break myself of that habit [of not writing out a first draft ] because I'm working on a couple novels and I know if I tried to write those books the way I wrote the stories it would take me years to finish.

Book, Couple, Draft, Stories, Working, Writing

When I started graduate school we did this publishing class where we learned about submitting and read interviews with editors from different magazines. A lot of them said they got so many submissions that unless the first page stuck out or the first paragraph or even the first sentence they'll probably send it back. So part of my idea was that if I have a really good first sentence maybe they'll read on a bit further. At least half, maybe more of the stories in Knockemstiff started with the first sentence; I got it down then went from there.

Different, Editors, Ideas, Knockemstiff, School, Send

I had this bad habit of not writing out a first draft and going back. For me it was the first sentence, then the second sentence, and I might be several weeks on the first page instead of writing a draft and trying to figure it out from there.

Back, Habit, Instead, Might, Trying, Writing

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.

Know, Nurse, People, Stories, Writing

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Anatole Broyard

Sex almost always disappoints me in novels. Everything can be said or done now, and that's what I often find: everything, a feeling of generality or dispersal. But in my experience, true sex is so particular, so peculiar to the person who yearns for it. Only he or she, and no one else, would desire so very much that very person under those circumstances. In fiction, I miss that sense of terrific specificity.

Sex, Writing, Missing, Said, Generality, Miss

Laozi

The Master's power is like this. He lets all things come and go effortlessly, without desire. He never expects results; thus he is never disappointed. He is never disappointed; thus his spirit never grows old.

Desire, Effortlessly, Old, Power, Tao Te Ching, Taoism

Gerard Way

It tastes like somebody stole my wallet. Ya know?

Knows, Stole, Taste, Tastes, Wallet, Wallets

Paracelsus

That which lives on reason lives against the spirit.

Against, Lives, Reason, Spirit

Thomas Gray