A Quote by Joe R. Lansdale
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.
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You're young and you're always in pursuit your young manhood. You're trying to figure out - what does that mean? What does - you know, there's a lot of pressure on young men to sort that out. And, you know, we tend to gravitate towards one-dimensional iconography as far as what it means to be a fully grown man. And you can get lost in so much of it out there.
I kept trying to tell people that just because I was young didn't mean I could speak for all young people.
So many great movements didn't succeed the first time, but people kept trying and trying and trying.
Being yourself is one of the hardest things because it's scary. You always wonder whether you'll be accepted for who you really are. I decided to call my record 'Inside Out' because that's my motto about life. I don't think you ever succeed at trying to be anyone else but who you truly are.
We know there are a lot of good secondaries out there. We are just trying to focus on what we can do to get better. We've got some new, young guys coming in and we are trying to catch them up to speed. We are trying to make sure that we have depth, making sure the guys behind us know what is going on. We are going to keep pushing each other to raise the standard for our secondary.
Many people theorize poverty, but so many elements of poverty, individually, for most people who theorize about poverty would be really difficult to even comprehend the individual things. Just take homelessness. If you are homeless, what does it mean not to have a post box where people can contact you; what does it mean not knowing where you're going to sleep at the end of the day; what does it mean not having a place where you can store what little you might possess. So dealing with homelessness in itself is a huge thing for most people who are commentators [on] or benefactors to poverty.
I didn't want to be looked at as a below-the-poverty-line kid. But now I think, that trailer is where I got the ambition. The anger. If we had a better life, I wouldn't be here. That trailer made me.
A lot of people probably think I'm not athletic or don't even try to work out or whatever, but I do. Just because you're big doesn't mean you can't be an athlete. And just because you work out doesn't mean you're going to have a 12-pack. I work out to make sure I can do my job to the best of my ability. Other than that, I'm not going up there trying to be a fitness model.
Once I came out in college I just have always been out and at work with pretty much everybody. My wife and I both working as journalists, because she's a photographer, and often working together, would have to kind of navigate this weird world. When you're trying to develop sources, when you're trying to you know make personal connections with people, you inevitably want to share things about yourself and that can be really tricky.
Children in poverty aren't trying to get out of poverty; they're just trying to rip off a pair of Nikes. So we Indian people are a microcosm of what's happening in America. We are now consumers, and our culture has gone.
Usually I'm trying to turn something around or turn it inside out and see what's underneath. I know that probably sounds incredibly vague but I never set out to be likeable or funny or anything like that. I'm just trying to tell the story in the best way that I can and serve the writer because it's really about the writer.
It's not possible to advise a young writer because every young writer is so different. You might say, "Read," but a writer can read too much and be paralyzed. Or, "Don't read, don't think, just write," and the result could be a mountain of drivel. If you're going to be a writer you'll probably take a lot of wrong turns and then one day just end up writing something you have to write, then getting it better and better just because you want it to be better, and even when you get old and think, "There must be something else people do," you won't be able to quit.
Especially the young kids who don't have any guidance, just stuck on trying to be a tough guy or trying to be a gangster - there are different ways out there to better yourself. You just need the right guy out there to push you.
Even when I was living below the poverty line as a novelist, I was still living better than 99.5% of the human population of the world. But in my little, soft realm of trying to amuse a few dozen middle-class people with my books and articles, I did struggle to survive in my own way.
Some people just don't want to put in the effort. I just show up and say some lines and I'm famous. Anyone living below the poverty line just needs to shape up or be shipped out, you know?
At a young age I always had an entrepreneurial spirit. So I'm trying to develop things on my own, too, and there are a couple things that have absolutely nothing to do with the entertainment business that I'm trying to tackle. We'll just sort of see.
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