Quotes by Jim Harrison

“Naturally we would prefer seven epiphanies a day and an earth not so apparently devoid of angels.”

His own life suddenly seemed repellently formal. Whom did he know or what did he know and whom did he love? Sitting on the stump under the burden of his fathers death and even the mortality inherent in the dying, wildly colored canopy of leaves, he somehow understood that life was only what one did every day.... Nothing was like anything else, including himself, and everything was changing all of the time. He knew he couldnt perceive the change because he was changing too, along with everything else.

Perhaps swimming was dancing under the water, he thought. To swim under lily pads seeing their green slender stalks wavering as you passed, to swim under upraised logs past schools of sunfish and bluegills, to swim through reed beds past wriggling water snakes and miniature turtles, to swim in small lakes, big lakes, Lake Michigan, to swim in small farm ponds, creeks, rivers, giant rivers where one was swept along easefully by the current, to swim naked alone at night when you were nineteen and so alone you felt like you were choking every waking moment, having left home for reasons more hormonal than rational; reasons having to do with the abstraction of the future and ones questionable place in the world of the future, an absurdity not the less harsh for being so widespread.

Sometimes the only answer to death is lunch.

Wherever we go we do harm, forgivingourselves as wheels do cement for wearingeach other out. We set this houseon fire, forgetting that we live within.(from To a Meadowlark, for M.L. Smoker)

A poet must discover that it’s his own story that is true, even if the truth is small indeed.

Suits obviously had helped to promote bad government and he was as guilty as anyone for wearing them so steadfastly for twenty years. Of late he had become frightened of the government for the first time in his life, the way the structure of democracy had begun debasing people rather than enlivening them in their mutual concern. The structure was no longer concerned with the purpose for which it was designed, and a small part of the cause, Nordstrom thought, was probably that all politicians and bureaucrats wore suits.

His own life suddenly seemed repellently formal. Whom did he know or what did he know and whom did he love? Sitting on the stump under the burden of his fathers death and even the mortality inherent in the dying, wildly colored canopy of leaves, he somehow understood that life was only what one did every day.... Nothing was like anything else, including himself, and everything was changing all of the time. He knew he couldnt perceive the change because he was changing too, along with everything

I prefer the skylineof a shelf of books.

You dont have to become what you already are, which is a relief.

Trying to teach creativity is the major hoax of our time along with the Iraq war and plastic surgery ~ Snarky comment of Clive from The River Swimmer (pg 47)

Never before have the American people had their noses so deeply in one anothers business. If I announce that I and eleven other diners shared a thirty-seven-course lunch that likely cost as much as a new Volvo station wagon, Those of a critical nature will let their minds run in tiny, aghast circles of condemnation. My response to them is that none of us twelve disciples of gourmandise wanted a new Volvo. We wanted only lunch and since lunch lasted approximately eleven hours we saved money by not having to buy diner. The defense rests.

She wasnt trying to overcome life, only to get along with it, to blend with the processes she could scarcely understand in a world that had permitted her no solid ground.

You do manage a somewhat religious attitude toward your art. It is a calling rather than a job.

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.

We are delightfully trapped by our memories. I cant 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.

My biggest pet peeve is when you go to a fine restaurant, and its like a mausoleum inside. Good food should be joyful. There should be laughter and chatter, not people sitting there like theyre in a funeral-parlor waiting room.

The big curse of America, to me, is skinless, boneless chicken breasts. Theyre banal and relatively flavorless. The rest of the worlds trying to get some fat to eat, and were trying to ban it from our diet.

After a lifetime of world travel Ive been fascinated that those in the third world dont have the same perception of reality that we do.

Age focuses you. You are much better concentrated. Theres more time when you travel less, dont do book tours, avoid interviews or public appearances. You walk the dogs, fish, hunt, cook and write.