The interesting thing about being in a rut is that the only thing you see are the sides of the rut. You don’t see out.
~ Conversations with Jim Harrison
Jim Harrison on Infirmities
Our cures are interesting. Our infirmities aren’t. Everyone knows about infirmities.
~ Conversations with Jim Harrison
Jim Harrison on Therapists
…the trouble is, as many will admit, only one therapist out of a thousand is any good.
~ Conversations with Jim Harrison
Jim Harrison on Writing and Money
“I averaged twelve grand a year for ten years, and then I got a little more, up to thirty-five grand,” Harrison said.
~ Conversations with Jim Harrison
Jim Harrison on Writers
Writers, I think, are sometimes productive to the extent that they remain sort of childlike about certain things. They stay operative for that reason.
~ Conversations with Jim Harrison
Jim Harrison on the Difficulties of Drawing Attention to Poetry
“…you would have to immolate a volunteer poet in a 751 BMW”
~ Jim Harrison / Wikipedia
Jim Harrison on Reputation
…I’m not interested in any reputation that has to be sought.
~ Jim Harrison / Paris Review
Jim Harrison on Interestingness
Am I supposed to think that Ronald Reagan is as interesting as Crazy Horse, when he’s not?
~ Jim Harrison / Paris Review
Jim Harrison on Salvation
For my purposes, I believe what Kierkegaard said, that you have to work out your own salvation with fear and trembling before you can get on with anyone else’s program.
~ Jim Harrison / Paris Review
Jim Harrison on Greed
They don’t know what happened to the hundred civilizations represented by the American Indian. That’s shocking. I’m dealing with that in this book. To me, the Indians are our curse on the house of Atreus. They’re our doom. The way we killed them is also what’s killing us now. Greed. Greed. It’s totally an Old Testament notion but absolutely true. Greed is killing the soul-life of the nation. You can see it all around you. It’s destroying what’s left of our physical beauty, it’s polluting the country, it’s making us more Germanic and warlike and stupid.
~ Jim Harrison / Paris Review
Jim Harrison on Technique
Finally, what Wallace Stevens said, which I love and which is hard to explain to younger writers, is that technique is the proof of your seriousness.
~ Jim Harrison / Paris Review
Jim Harrison on Simplicity
“I’m no longer interested in getting fancy for the wrong reasons.”
~ Jim Harrison
Jim Harrison on Writing
“What people forget is that this is not a goal-oriented operation.”
~ Jim Harrison
Jim Harrison on Helping People
“I’m always having a man in desperate straits trying to help somebody else out with no apparent success, because nobody can be helped by anybody.”
~ Jim Harrison
Jim Harrison on Work
“Eventually everyone knows if you did the job or not.”
~ Jim Harrison
Jim Harrison on Grandiosity
“I had to consciously subdue my more grandiose impulses.”
~ Jim Harrison
Jim Harrison on Inequality
“Such a small percentage of people get everything and all the rest get virtually nothing.”
~ Jim Harrison