Jim Harrison Quotes

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.

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

I used to get criticized for putting food in novels.

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

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

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

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

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

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

I do have trouble with titles.

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.

I can write anywhere.

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.

Everybody has a gun in their car in Detroit.

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

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.

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

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'm not rational enough to be a good journalist.

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

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

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

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.

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.