At one level you're condemned to the voice you have. But within those confines, you have a certain amount of freedom to range among your possible voices.
- David Guterson Quote

Don Quixote is one that comes to mind in comparison to mine, in that they both involve journeys undertaken by older men. That is unusual, because generally the hero of a journey story is very young.
- David Guterson Quote

Even though I may not intend it when I set out to write the book, these places just emerge as major players in what I'm doing, almost as if they are insisting on it.
- David Guterson Quote

Hemingway said the only way to write about a place is to leave it.
- David Guterson Quote

I became paralyzed as an artist with writer's block.
- David Guterson Quote

I have traveled the entire state and spent a lot of time out of doors. So I have known the landscape of the Columbia Basin for quite a while, and I have had this strong feeling about it for many years.
- David Guterson Quote

I often heard about his cases and I often sat in on his trials. In the late 1960s when I was growing up I wanted to be a crusader like him but I didn't want to wear a suit and commute.
- David Guterson Quote

I was aware that there is an expectation that writers inevitably falter at this stage, that they fail to live up to the promise of their first successful book, that the next book never pleases the way the prior one did. It simply increased my sense of being challenged.
- David Guterson Quote

I was born in Washington State and have lived here for 42 plus years.
- David Guterson Quote

I'm interested in themes that endure from generation to generation.
- David Guterson Quote

I'm not an urban person.
- David Guterson Quote

My book is traditional. It runs counter to the post-modern spirit.
- David Guterson Quote

Post-modernism is dead because it didn't address human needs.
- David Guterson Quote

The real question is: How do you react? What do you do next? Evade responsibilities? Bury yourself in work? What do you do? All three of my novels take up that question, although none gives an answer.
- David Guterson Quote

Time made me change. I gradually woke up to the realization that this is who I am, an author, a public figure, and I couldn't just hide in my study, tapping away at the keyboard and pretend that I didn't have a role to play beyond stringing words together.
- David Guterson Quote

What some people interpret as brooding melancholy is serenity. I don't feel required to grasp all the time.
- David Guterson Quote

When I went to college I took a creative writing class and decided in a week to be a writer.
- David Guterson Quote

When it comes time to sit down and write the next book, you're deathly afraid that you're not up to the task. That was certainly the case with me after Snow Falling on Cedars.
- David Guterson Quote