Jim Harrison Quotes
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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.
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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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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.
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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.
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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.
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Given free rein, our imagination can get infinite.
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I've got a poem that's in a lot of international anthologies called 'After the Anonymous Swedish' and I thought, 'Well, I'm a Swede. I can make up a Swedish poem.' It turned out pretty good.
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If all I did was answer the correspondence I get, that would be my job.
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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.
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Writers can write outside their ethnicity or sex depending how open and vulnerable they wish to be.
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I grew up in an agricultural family, and I never distanced myself from where the food comes from. I think it's quite natural.
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I don't feel tentative when I start to write. I've usually thought about a novel or novella for several years and created a lot of juice and density and energy by that time so by the time I get ready to go, I just let 'er fling, you know.
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Riesling? It smells like an intensive care ward.
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Success and money can really be quite blinding.
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I can't stand the short story form, which, after all, is a magazine form.
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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?
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I've always been intemperate in my affection for food.
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There's something frightening about finding a woman who would take your heart.
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I had a concussion I didn't get over for three years. I think that's why I'm goofy.
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I'm actually forced to write about Michigan because as a native of that state it's the place I know best.
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Unlike a lot of writers, I don't have any craving to be understood.
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My favorite thing is just walking in the woods. I can do it for days on end without tiring of it.
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What moves me most is style: the quality of the writing rather than the story being told.
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I rarely read or buy a book because of a review.