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.
— Joe R. Lansdale
I think the big thing is that Stephen King is just a phenomenon, and when he came along, for the first time horror was suddenly considered a very commercial genre. It had always been around, of course, but now, the books had the word 'horror' actually printed on their spines.
I started writing when I was 9. My mother told me it was before that, but that was the first I remember.
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.
My dad was born in 1909, my mother in 1914, I believe. Their life experiences were different than younger parents, so I grew up with a different perspective.
I was born in the '50s - 1951. So I grew up during that part of the '50s when everything was supposed to be at its best in America, they claimed, and then eased into the '60s.
Robert Bloch taught me about mixing horror and humor.
'Night They Missed the Horror Show' is my signature story. It changed my life, so it remains my favorite.
I have been on a horrible sea cruise. When my wife and I went to Mexico, Jamaica, and the Cayman Islands, I was seasick for a lot of the time. I didn't like being trapped on a ship with a bunch of shuffleboarders.
If you know everything, it keeps you from writing. You don't want a story to burn you out instead of surprising you.
I never got a degree; I just started writing.
'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 sold my first story when I was 21 in 1973.
The Aryan Nation, the Klan, all these anti-immigrant groups - they've never really disappeared, and if you think they have, then you've been living in a bubble.
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'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 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.
I lived below the poverty line when I was young and starting out as a writer. But my wife and I kept trying to do things better, as anyone with ambition does. But just because you're trying doesn't mean you're always going to succeed.
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 come from blue collar. I'm very working class.
My parents had become adults during the Great Depression, as had many of my aunts and uncles, so I got stories from all of them. They are fastened up inside me, and now and again, they have to come out.
I remember going to a theater once, and there was a stairway that wound its way out to the back. And I was very young, a small child, and I said to my mom, 'Why are those people going up those stairs?' And she said, 'You know, I don't know how to tell you this, I don't know how to explain it, but it won't always be that way, because it's wrong.'
I always disliked that anytime you had gays represented in - and there were some exceptions, certainly - but represented in popular fiction, they were usually the goofy neighbor next door, you know? And I just thought, 'Well, I know a lot of gay people, and they're just as varied as the heterosexual people I know.'
Ray Bradbury taught me the importance of metaphor and simile and poetic style.
I work in the mornings almost exclusively.
When I wrote 'Savage Season,' it was three years later before I wrote the second Hap and Leonard novel. Whenever I wrote one, I never intended to write the next one.
I've got friends who totally disagree on politics, religion, cultural things, but at the core, we're the same people.
I worked in rose fields, and I worked in potato fields. I did some bouncing.
When you live in a small town behind the Pine Curtain, you live inside your head a lot.
The bottom line is, Texas and its people are pretty much what most people mean when they use the broader term 'America.'
I really hate racism because I saw people denied possibilities.
Psychologists and psychiatrists send me cards and say, 'Hey, I love your books.'
Every time I've ever gotten close to being successful, I've found some way to screw it up.
I've never liked the publishing world's determination to pigeonhole every writer into a genre.
The Westerns have probably affected me more than any one thing, Western-related material. I love Westerns.
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, horror fiction.
'The Bottoms' or 'A Fine Dark Line' are two of my favorites.
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 girl and had come to Texas by covered wagon.
I never felt poor. Our family euphemism was that we were broke, which I think psychologically gave you a different feeling. There were people far worse than we were.
I was well under the spell of the old Gold Medal Crime novels when I wrote 'Savage Season,' and I wanted to write a modern version of that. I had tried the same thing with 'Cold in July,' and I wanted to give it another go.
Edgar Rice Burroughs taught me pace and gave me a sense of action and adventure.
I do better just letting the stories develop. I don't outline very well, and I can't follow it if I do. Once I've outlined it, why write the damn book?
In some ways, I don't consider a single Hap and Leonard novel the best, but I consider them my best characters.
I decided with 'Savage Season' to use a lot of things in my life as the basis.
My father, he couldn't read or write.
People in my town were not that into reading, but the overblown way Texans told stories was important.
Texas is so wrapped up in myth and legend, it's hard to know what the state and its people are really about. Real Texans, raised on these myths and legends, sometimes become legends themselves.
Twain is my keystone. He reminds me of my people because that's the way they told stories.
If you don't toot your own horn, it goeth untooted.
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.
