Top 166 Quotes & Sayings by Jim Harrison

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American novelist Jim Harrison.
Last updated on April 14, 2025.
Jim Harrison

James Harrison was an American poet, novelist, and essayist. He was a prolific and versatile writer publishing over three dozen books in several genres including poetry, fiction, nonfiction, children’s literature, and memoir. He wrote screenplays, book reviews, literary criticism, and published essays on food, travel, and sport. Harrison indicated that, of all his writing, his poetry meant the most to him. He published 24 novellas during his lifetime and is considered "America’s foremost master" of that form. His first commercial success came with the 1979 publication of the trilogy of novellas, Legends of the Fall, two of which were made into movies. Harrison's work has been translated into multiple languages including Spanish, French, Greek, Chinese, and Russian. He was the recipient of multiple awards and honors including a Guggenheim Fellowship (1969), the Mark Twain Award for distinguished contributions to Midwestern literature (1990), and induction into the American Academy of Arts & Letters (2007). Harrison wrote that "The dream that I could write a good poem, a good novel, or even a good movie for that matter, has devoured my life."

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.
We are all naturally xenophobic.
We are supposed to write poetry to keep the gods alive. — © Jim Harrison
We are supposed to write poetry to keep the gods alive.
Naturally we would prefer seven epiphanies a day and an earth not so apparently devoid of angels.
The big curse of America, to me, is skinless, boneless chicken breasts. They're banal and relatively flavorless. The rest of the world's trying to get some fat to eat, and we're trying to ban it from our diet.
We pretend that the brain is binary, like a computer. But it's not. It's completely holographic.
I rarely read or buy a book because of a review.
I'm afraid that eating in restaurants reflects one's experiences with movies, art galleries, novels, music - that is, characterized by mild amusement but with an overall feeling of stupidity and shame. Better to cook for yourself.
I write novellas because I don't like loose sprawling prose.
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.
Yeah, but now suddenly - you know, universities are notoriously market oriented, too.
Food is a great literary theme. Food in eternity, food and sex, food and lust. Food is a part of the whole of life. Food is not separate.
Your kids inevitably want to move where they had their vacations when they were younger. — © Jim Harrison
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 should add that I very much enjoy certain cities especially Paris, New York and Chicago.
I'm not rational enough to be a good journalist.
I can write anywhere.
The trajectory started when I was on the roof of our house looking out at a swamp when I was 19. I had written for several years, starting at about 15, but that day on the roof I took my vows and acknowledged my calling.
Given free rein, our imagination can get infinite.
I like grit. I like love and death. I'm tired of irony.
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 work every morning, all morning, sometimes in the afternoons. Then sometimes I hunt in the afternoons - quail, doves, grouse up north - but just to stay alive, because writers die from their lifestyle but also from their lack of movement.
Poetry, at its best, is the language your soul would speak if you could teach your soul to speak.
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.
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.
You can't be unhappy in the middle of a big, beautiful river.
I don't know what psychotherapy does. I have been seeing the same person for 26 years now.
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.
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.
If all I did was answer the correspondence I get, that would be my job.
I got $30 from Nation magazine for a poem and $500 for my first book of poems.
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.
Everybody has a gun in their car in Detroit.
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.
I wrote 'Legends of the Fall' in nine days, but I had been thinking about it for a few years.
Sometimes literary critics review the book they wanted you to write, not the book you wrote, and that's very irksome.
Because most writers have totally unrealistic concepts of how publishing works.
The fact is, the media never gets off the interstate unless there's a major explosion. — © Jim Harrison
The fact is, the media never gets off the interstate unless there's a major explosion.
Writers can write outside their ethnicity or sex depending how open and vulnerable they wish to be.
I see more genuine sociability between the races in Mississippi than I see in Michigan. No question.
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.
Unlike a lot of writers, I don't have any craving to be understood.
I think the trouble with artists or chefs who whine about criticism is that if you love the good reviews, you have to at least read the bad ones.
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 don't see gender as the most significant fact of human existence.
I used to get criticized for putting food in novels.
I've never felt influenced by Ernest Hemingway though I suppose there is something inevitable there.
Short things are short all over and long things are long all over. — © Jim Harrison
Short things are short all over and long things are long all over.
Writing as a woman presents enormous problems but I have attempted it several times and haven't had many complaints.
I thought, frankly, that it would be more pleasant to write a memoir than it was.
Success and money can really be quite blinding.
I do have trouble with titles.
New Yorkers are mostly interested in New York - in case you haven't noticed.
The only durable sense of success is if you've followed your calling.
I'm actually forced to write about Michigan because as a native of that state it's the place I know best.
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.
My favorite thing is just walking in the woods. I can do it for days on end without tiring of it.
Michigan is two radically different places - the North and the South which makes for good drama and contrast.
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.
I enjoy about 1 out of 100 movies, it's about the same proportion to books published that I care to read.
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