Patrick deWitt

I lay in the dark thinking about the difficulties of family, how crazy and crooked the stories of a bloodline can be.

I sighed. __t doesn__ matter what we do. Money comes and goes._ I shook my head. __t doesn__ matter and you know it doesn__.

Work will drive you crazy if you let it.

I do not know what it was about that boy but just looking at him, even I wanted to clout him on the head. It was a head that invited violence.

When you're 8 years old, and you've become subconsciously familiar with the layout and design of Black Sparrow books, and you know the difference between Miles Davis and John Coltrane, something is bound to stick.

Whenever we changed schools, we had to make a new set of friends. At the time, of course, I hated it. But looking back now, I'm really glad I did, because it forces independence on you.

I think of myself as somebody who, in a moment-to-moment way, I'm quite happy. But I think I am a bit doubtful and wary of true happiness, and, like a lot of my friends, there's been a good degree of self-sabotage.

I've stopped reading about the death of books because it's wasteful and morbid and insulting to the authors, agents, publishers, booksellers, critics, and readers that keep the world community of fiction interesting.

I was intentionally curbing the impulse to be funny and hiding the ability. I wrote any number of very serious attempts at poems, short stories, novels - horrible. At a certain point, I recognized that it was fun to write dialogue that had a degree of lightness and humor.

Some wear greed as a fine suit of clothes. But you, my son, bear its stamp ever more poorly.

There is nothing typical about my profession._ Suddenly I did not want to talk about it any longer. __ don__ want to talk about it any longer.