Jim Harrison Quotes about Literature

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.

I don't see gender as the most significant fact of human existence.

I had let my digust with teaching ruin my love of literature.

Short things are short all over and long things are long all over.

Success and money can really be quite blinding.

I've never felt influenced by Ernest Hemingway though I suppose there is something inevitable there.

Writing as a woman presents enormous problems but I have attempted it several times and haven't had many complaints.

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

New Yorkers are mostly interested in New York - in case you haven't noticed.

I don't know what psychotherapy does. I have been seeing the same person for 26 years now.

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.

Yeah, but now suddenly - you know, universities are notoriously market oriented, too.

I thought, frankly, that it would be more pleasant to write a memoir than it was.

I'm not rational enough to be a good journalist.

I rarely read or buy a book because of a review.

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