Jim Harrison

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.

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.

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 wrote 'Legends of the Fall' in nine days, but I had been thinking about it for a few years.

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.

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.

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.

There's something frightening about finding a woman who would take your heart.

Between the two dream coasts, we're just called flyover country... If you aren't known as an amorphous Eastern Seaboard writer, you're dismissed as a regional author.

Fiction writers tend to err either making people more than they are or less than they are. I'd rather err on the side of the former.

I've never been a true fan of the short story and have only published a single example of my own.

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?