Quotes from Jim Harrison

We are delightfully trapped by our memories. I can't drink a bottle of Chateauneuf-du-Pape Vieux Telegraphe without revisiting a hotel bistro in Luzerne, Switzerland, where I ate a large bowl of a peppery Basque baby goat stew. A sip and a bite. A bite and sip. Goose bumps come with the divine conjunction of food and wine.

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

The reviews are getting better, but they always do, in time, if you're still alive.

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

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.'

I do mourn my characters. I wrote an essay once where I was sure that far back in a marsh there was a hummock - a little hill of hardwoods - and an old farm house, where all the heroines in my novels lived together with all my beloved dead dogs. I've discussed this with my therapist, naturally. He says it's okay in fair amounts.

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.

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

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

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

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

Everybody has a gun in their car in Detroit.

My favorite thing is just walking in the woods. I can do it for days on end without tiring of it.

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.

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 don't want to go around like some kind of bleeding giant or whatever, or thinking I'm a big deal, because it doesn't help you do your work. I think people like Hemingway got into an awful lot of trouble that way.

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.

Barring love I'll take my life in large doses alone--rivers, forests, fish, grouse, mountains. Dogs.

We Americans are trained to think big, talk big, act big, love big, admire bigness but then the essential mystery is in the small.

Between the two dream coasts, we're just called flyover country... If you aren't known as an amorphous Eastern Seaboard writer, you're dismissed as a regional author.

When I write, I don't like to be around any humans.

Age focuses you. You are much better concentrated. There's more time when you travel less, don't do book tours, avoid interviews or public appearances. You walk the dogs, fish, hunt, cook and write.

Marriage is survived just on the basis of ordinary etiquette, day in and day out. Also cooking together helps a lot.