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Writer Quotes by Joe R. Lansdale

18 Writer quotes by Joe R. Lansdale

All Writer quotes Joe R. Lansdale’s page

If you’ve ever wondered how a storyteller balances horror, humor, and hard‑boiled grit, this selection offers a quick yet vivid glimpse into Lansdale’s mindset. The lines below capture his restless imagination and his unapologetic take on what it means to be a writer.

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I write what I hear.

Joe R. Lansdale

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I never got a degree; I just started writing.

Joe R. Lansdale

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I've never liked the publishing world's determination to pigeonhole every writer into a genre.

Joe R. Lansdale

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I always write like the devil's behind me with a whip. I'm going to write because I like it. Then I'm going…

Joe R. Lansdale

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I've done very well financially and sold a lot because I've had a multiple method of attack as a writer. That's a…

Joe R. Lansdale

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Sometimes, if I don't write for a day or two, I get backed up - it's like constipation.

Joe R. Lansdale

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I don't want people reading my books just because they're horror or mysteries. I want them to read them because they're Joe…

Joe R. Lansdale

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I do better just letting the stories develop. I don't outline very well, and I can't follow it if I do. Once…

Joe R. Lansdale

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Psychologists and psychiatrists send me cards and say, 'Hey, I love your books.'

Joe R. Lansdale

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People who grew up on my books are now able to get the point across to others that they're worth reading.

Joe R. Lansdale

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I have finally become my own genre, and now that's what publishers want. I have a wonderful publisher now, Mulholland, very innovated,…

Joe R. Lansdale

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My mother wanted me to be a reader. She was a reader. Even though she had an 11th-grade education, she was curious…

Joe R. Lansdale

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Scott Sigler's Infected is a bucking pulp pony that throws you this way and that, and just when you think you've got…

Joe R. Lansdale

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I was a house dad. Once, my wife was working as a dispatcher at the fire department, and I was staying home…

Joe R. Lansdale

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Different influences at different times in my career, and some have stayed with me more, some less. Chester Himes. Ralph Dennis, who…

Joe R. Lansdale

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The simple fact is, the more people who buy your books, the more are likely to read you. That's what I'd like…

Joe R. Lansdale

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Some people see writing as a white-collar career, but I've always approached it as a blue-collar writer.

Joe R. Lansdale

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I started writing when I was 9. My mother told me it was before that, but that was the first I remember.

Joe R. Lansdale

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More by Joe R. Lansdale

I have finally become my own genre, and now that's what publishers want. I have a wonderful publisher now, Mulholland, very innovated, very fine…

Joe R. Lansdale

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Some people see writing as a white-collar career, but I've always approached it as a blue-collar writer.

Joe R. Lansdale

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“‎He decided quite suddenly, having kept fairly good record on the calendar, that tomorrow was Christmas Eve, and zombies be damned. The Christmas lights…

Joe R. Lansdale

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A lot of friends I went to school with were criminals.

Joe R. Lansdale

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I think there are some people for whom words are like food.

Joe R. Lansdale

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The reviews on it, and the new novel, Honky Tonk Samurai have been awesome, though I'm of the school if you believe the good…

Joe R. Lansdale

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“Killing ain’t no good thing, son, unless it’s to eat or protect yourself. And you ought never to delight in it.”

Joe R. Lansdale

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I've done very well financially and sold a lot because I've had a multiple method of attack as a writer. That's a conscious strategy.

Joe R. Lansdale

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I used to just sit down and read the dictionary, and I read the Bible and Shakespeare from cover to cover.

Joe R. Lansdale

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My parents had become adults during the Great Depression, as had many of my aunts and uncles, so I got stories from all of…

Joe R. Lansdale

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I know the Pollock novel. Read it last year and liked it. Daniel Woodrell is awesome. I especially like the book Winter's Bone, and…

Joe R. Lansdale

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My grandmother on my mother's side lived to nearly 100 years old, and she had seen Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show as a little…

Joe R. Lansdale

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I write what I hear.

Joe R. Lansdale

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I've been writing since 1973. I've written nonfiction things of that nature, but I'm probably best known for crime fiction and, to some extent,…

Joe R. Lansdale

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“Far as I knew, closest she'd gotten to art was a drafting table and dressing mannequins in store windows, and the closest I'd gotten…

Joe R. Lansdale

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