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

I think the trouble with artists or chefs who whine about criticism is that if you love the good reviews, you have to at least read the bad ones.

Sometimes literary critics review the book they wanted you to write, not the book you wrote, and that's very irksome.

My biggest pet peeve is when you go to a fine restaurant, and it's like a mausoleum inside. Good food should be joyful. There should be laughter and chatter, not people sitting there like they're in a funeral-parlor waiting room.

The big curse of America, to me, is skinless, boneless chicken breasts. They're banal and relatively flavorless. The rest of the world's trying to get some fat to eat, and we're trying to ban it from our diet.

Given free rein, our imagination can get infinite.

If all I did was answer the correspondence I get, that would be my job.

Unlike a lot of writers, I don't have any craving to be understood.

I work every morning, all morning, sometimes in the afternoons. Then sometimes I hunt in the afternoons - quail, doves, grouse up north - but just to stay alive, because writers die from their lifestyle but also from their lack of movement.

Other than fishing and a little bird-hunting, all I do is write.

You do manage a somewhat religious attitude toward your art. It is a calling rather than a job.

I've never been a true fan of the short story and have only published a single example of my own.

What moves me most is style: the quality of the writing rather than the story being told.

As a child, I was an obsessive reader, as was everybody in my family all winter long with my father. I think I was only 8 when I read Edward Gibbon's 'The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.'

If all I did was pretend I was Wilderness Jimmy, I would go stale. You know, I fish maybe 100 days of the year and bird-hunt, but if I didn't go to Paris once or twice a year, I'd be crazy.

Marriage is survived just on the basis of ordinary etiquette, day in and day out. Also cooking together helps a lot... I've seen all these marriages that failed. Those people are always hollering at each other. That doesn't work.

Your subconscious mind is trying to help you all the time. That's why I keep a journal - not for chatter but for mostly the images that flow into the mind or little ideas. I keep a running journal, and I have all of my life, so it's like your gold mine when you start writing.

I'm outdoors a lot, so I get dark. Guess who gets stopped? I've been pulled over, and they ask, 'Where are you from?' I say, 'Montana.' They say, 'Are you sure? And I say, 'I'm reasonably sure I'm from Montana, but you know, this is a dream life.' You start on this shtick with them and it's fun.

Whatever I learned reading 'Scientific American,' nothing can finally compete with your own observations.

We are supposed to write poetry to keep the gods alive.

Either you can do what others want, or you can do what you want to do. That's an easy call.

I wasn't taking myself seriously as a novelist, and then it became my day job.

I had a concussion I didn't get over for three years. I think that's why I'm goofy.

I don't trust anybody that doesn't do good work. I don't give them any credibility. If they can't write, why should I believe anything they have to say?

I couldn't read a screenplay without puking.

The idea is to eat well and not die from it - for the simple reason that that would be the end of your eating.

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 are all naturally xenophobic.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

I used to get criticized for putting food in novels.

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

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

I do have trouble with titles.

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

I can write anywhere.

Everybody has a gun in their car in Detroit.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

Success and money can really be quite blinding.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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