Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Texas is as alien as Mars.
I work in the mornings almost exclusively.
I sold my first story when I was 21 in 1973.
A day without the sun is like you know, night
I come from blue collar. I'm very working class.
The logic of a madman is a sane man's confusion.
If you don't toot your own horn, it goeth untooted.
Robert Bloch taught me about mixing horror and humor.
I think I built my reputation by not worrying about it.
Don't try to skin your rabbit and keep it as a pet too.
Hallowed be thy name, oh Lord -- and shotgun do your stuff
'The Bottoms' or 'A Fine Dark Line' are two of my favorites.
I really hate racism because I saw people denied possibilities.
Ossie Davis is one of my heroes for civil rights and things like that.
I love and respect the West - you can't live in Texas and not do that.
I don't plot, and I don't plan. I like to be surprised like the reader.
I worked in rose fields, and I worked in potato fields. I did some bouncing.
I decided with 'Savage Season' to use a lot of things in my life as the basis.
Ray Bradbury taught me the importance of metaphor and simile and poetic style.
Psychologists and psychiatrists send me cards and say, 'Hey, I love your books.'
Edgar Rice Burroughs taught me pace and gave me a sense of action and adventure.
Sometimes, if I don't write for a day or two, I get backed up - it's like constipation.
When you live in a small town behind the Pine Curtain, you live inside your head a lot.
Every time I've ever gotten close to being successful, I've found some way to screw it up.
Twain is my keystone. He reminds me of my people because that's the way they told stories.
I've never liked the publishing world's determination to pigeonhole every writer into a genre.
Only our memories allow that some people ever existed. That they mattered, or mattered too much.
I figure I can be artistic, but I work like a blue-collar person, too, and I'm serious about that.
There's no one more obnoxious and self-righteous than the self-made man. And no one more admirable.
People in my town were not that into reading, but the overblown way Texans told stories was important.
Some people see writing as a white-collar career, but I've always approached it as a blue-collar writer.
People who grew up on my books are now able to get the point across to others that they're worth reading.
'Night They Missed the Horror Show' is my signature story. It changed my life, so it remains my favorite.
The Westerns have probably affected me more than any one thing, Western-related material. I love Westerns.
I used to just sit down and read the dictionary, and I read the Bible and Shakespeare from cover to cover.
If you know everything, it keeps you from writing. You don't want a story to burn you out instead of surprising you.
I've got friends who totally disagree on politics, religion, cultural things, but at the core, we're the same people.
My father was the first person to introduce me to self-defense and martial arts, which I've been doing all my life now.
The bottom line is, Texas and its people are pretty much what most people mean when they use the broader term 'America.'
The simple fact is, the more people who buy your books, the more are likely to read you. That's what I'd like to see happen.
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 to write another.
I tried to draw and write comics when I was four. By the time I was nine, I had written my first story - about my dog, of course.
I'm glad I've had the comic work. I plan to do others, but I could lay it down if I had to choose. I hope I don't have to, though.
I've always felt that if you pay your bills and can take care of yourself without too much stress, then it's a pretty damn good life.
'Bubba Ho-Tep' was an accidental story that turned out to be my first film adaptation, and it's still going strong in story and film.
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.
I didn't read Western novels much until I was in my twenties, but I had a diet of them on film and TV, as well as other things, of course.
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 Lansdale books.
It was the kind of talk that made me want to break off a limb and take to whacking her and that bunch of hypocrites across the back of the head.
My father was just a hell of a guy. He had a real strong sense of honor, and he tried to pass that on to me. I like to think that I embrace that.