Jim Harrison

“Given free rein, our imagination can get infinite.”

“I think about the sentence a long time, and then I write it. I don't revise it once it's set down.”

“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 idea is to eat well and not die from it - for the simple reason that that would be the end of your eating.”

“I write novellas because I don't like loose sprawling prose.”

“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.”

“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 wri...”

“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 vow...”

“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.”

“You have to temporarily be the character in order to understand him. It's sort of what they used to call 'shape-shifting.'”

“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.”

“Because most writers have totally unrealistic concepts of how publishing works.”

“Your kids inevitably want to move where they had their vacations when they were younger.”

“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 all naturally xenophobic.”