Quotes from Thomas McGuane

I still don't see why you think this is a matter of conviction when it's just an extended bar fight.

I'm afraid that the best angling is always a respite from burden.

You never see a teaser for a film on television that doesn't have someone running around a corner with a gun. Have you noticed that?... I think Hollywood has as much responsibility for gun violence as the National Rifle Association.

I had a kind of tough early life. I had a tough time in school. I had an unsympathetic family in terms of what I was trying to do. I decided that my family situation was simply hopeless. I kinda bailed out, and my brother and sister didn't. I failed at marriage, which I'm very upset with myself over.

I really do love 'Panama.' But I'd also have to admit that right now, if I were driven to write another novel like that, I wouldn't even try to find a publisher for it. It simply wouldn't be published. I'd be writing it to put in my closet upstairs.

I think when I first started out, I had a kind of an exuberance about language, comedy, narrative leaps that... stopped just short of non sequiturs. And I'm much more cautious now.

I strongly believe that literature can do something that nothing else can do, and that is embody the human spirit.

I think there's only one interesting story... and that's struggle.

I like to write about the solitary things people do. Humans seem to function best when they're alone.

I'd be happy to have my biography be the stories of my dogs. To me, to live without dogs would mean accepting a form of blindness.

It's funny, but... you're sort of a moving target for fortune, and you never know when it will befall you.