Jim Harrison Quotes (50 Quotes)


    Writers can write outside their ethnicity or sex depending how open and vulnerable they wish to be.


    The wife picked out ceramic tile for floor covering, not realizing that cost was determined by square foot, not square yard like carpet. Thinking the price was plenty reasonable, she had an extra room of tile ordered for installation. When the bill arrived, it was staggering. She and her husband began a fight that continued all through the construction job. They ended up divorced, but not until she had broken every window.

    I couldn't run a tight schedule, and if you're any good at teaching, you get sucked dry because you like your students and you're trying to help them, but you don't have any time left to write yourself.

    New Yorkers are mostly interested in New York - in case you haven't noticed.


    I asked a French critic a couple of years ago why my books did so well in France. He said it was because in my novels people both act and think. I got a kick out of that.

    Because most writers have totally unrealistic concepts of how publishing works.

    We're looking for a good ball game. Our team is blue-collar and the kids are fired up to play. If we can make them change their game plan a little bit, we feel like we can give them a tough game and be right in it.

    I enjoy about 1 out of 100 movies, it's about the same proportion to books published that I care to read.

    I'm actually forced to write about Michigan because as a native of that state it's the place I know best.

    Writing as a woman presents enormous problems but I have attempted it several times and haven't had many complaints.

    I used to get criticized for putting food in novels.

    I don't know what psychotherapy does. I have been seeing the same person for 26 years now.

    Short things are short all over and long things are long all over.

    I see more genuine sociability between the races in Mississippi than I see in Michigan. No question.

    I write novellas because I don't like loose sprawling prose.

    The old fun thing is when somebody typed up the first chapter of War and Peace. And then made a precis of the rest of it and sent it out and only one publisher recognized it.

    I should add that I very much enjoy certain cities especially Paris, New York and Chicago.

    Those species and the others that are residents in the area depend on some pretty stable environments to survive.

    I rarely read or buy a book because of a review.


    The trajectory started when I was on the roof of our house looking out at a swamp when I was 19. I had written for several years, starting at about 15, but that day on the roof I took my vows and acknowledged my calling.

    There is a neurologist, a woman over at Harvard who wanted me to come talk to them, and in France I have a lot of readers in the sciences. I can't tell you why.

    This ranks up there with one of the worst storms in quite some time. It's possibly the worst in 100 years. It's definitely the worst in the last 15 years.

    Until the court has determined that they conducted an adequate search for my clients' documents, I think the document destruction should cease.

    Your kids inevitably want to move where they had their vacations when they were younger.

    I don't see gender as the most significant fact of human existence.


    Naturally we would prefer seven epiphanies a day and an earth not so apparently devoid of angels.

    That is simply the most beautiful publishing office in the world, with that cranky old building in that wonderful park.

    What they do, they do extremely well. We kept a shot chart on them and about 80 percent of their shots came within two feet of the basket because they're so good inside. We've got to give up shots to people who don't normally score to get some more bodies inside.

    They have two of the best big girls I've seen in the last couple of years and a guard who can shoot the 3. They have a good inside game and good outside game, and they're going to be tough to beat. They're real solid, the good thing is we only have to beat them once.

    I've never felt influenced by Ernest Hemingway though I suppose there is something inevitable there.

    Everybody has a gun in their car in Detroit.

    So when I made some money, I didn't have any idea how one handled such a situation because no one in our family ever had any money.

    Success and money can really be quite blinding.

    What is life that I must get teeth pulled Brown Dog thought, sitting on a white pine stump beside the muddy creek with a swollen jaw for company.

    Some people hear their own inner voices with great clearness. And they live by what they hear. Such people become crazy... or they become legend.

    We played with our hats on, just intelligent basketball. We don't beat teams with our talent. You've got to play with your brains and when we do that, we can play with anybody.

    I'm not rational enough to be a good journalist.

    I thought, frankly, that it would be more pleasant to write a memoir than it was.


    It's a normal part of the process to go through a traffic study and go over what is needed as far as any road impact that would occur because of the development.

    Michigan is two radically different places - the North and the South which makes for good drama and contrast.

    I don't expect them to take out ads in The New York Times . But I'd suggest that it includes some sort of notice other than in the Federal Register .

    After a lifetime of world travel I've been fascinated that those in the third world don't have the same perception of reality that we do.

    Yeah, but now suddenly - you know, universities are notoriously market oriented, too.

    The only advice I can give to aspiring writers is don't do it unless you're willing to give your whole life to it. Red wine and garlic also helps.

    I got $30 from Nation magazine for a poem and $500 for my first book of poems.

    The fact is, the media never gets off the interstate unless there's a major explosion.


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