Jim Harrison Quotes
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Writing as a woman presents enormous problems but I have attempted it several times and haven't had many complaints.
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I couldn't read a screenplay without puking.
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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.'
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The only durable sense of success is if you've followed your calling.
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Yeah, but now suddenly - you know, universities are notoriously market oriented, too.
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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.
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I've never been a true fan of the short story and have only published a single example of my own.
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You can be in terrible shape, and if you take a three-hour walk through the forest and along the river, you're simply not the same as when you started out.
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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.
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Sometimes, I tell my wife I have to take a car trip and collect new memories - I like to drive around at absolute random for weeks on end through the United States and parts of Canada. Or else I feel trapped, like you feel when your life is completely planned for months in advance, and you think you're not getting enough oxygen.
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The person that was closest to me growing up was my sister, who died at 19. She was an incredibly powerful girl, deeply committed to art and literature.
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I don't think it matters how fast you write. It's how long you thought about it. I like to think of it as a well filling up. I think about it until the well is full, and then I let go.
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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.
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I won't talk or deal with a young writer unless I sense he has utterly given his life over to it. It's a waste of my time. If they don't feel 'called' - why in God's name would you do this?
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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.
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The fact is, the media never gets off the interstate unless there's a major explosion.
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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.
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Nothing in the world causes more problems than concepts of ethnic virtue. It's irrelevant.
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Short things are short all over and long things are long all over.
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Whatever I learned reading 'Scientific American,' nothing can finally compete with your own observations.
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There aren't any real dumb people in my voices. It's always irritated me about Hollywood dialogue - there's so much dialogue that would just bore a Ford mechanic. This is not how people talk.
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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.
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You do manage a somewhat religious attitude toward your art. It is a calling rather than a job.
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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.