A biography for Thomas McGuanehasn’t been written yet.
“It took me a long time to know enough about writing to really write short stories. You can't just immerse yourself, as you do in a novel, and see where everything goes. Novels are a very flexible, accommodating form. Short stories aren't.”
“Marriage is anti-romantic - husband and wife are terms like 'turkey' and 'goose.' Worse, they denote ownership.”
“I'm a great reviser. I do these reckless drafts just to get the lay of the land.”
“Maybe I haven't been tested, but I have no fear of death at all. I was with Allen Ginsberg during the last year of his life, and he called all his friends and said, 'I'm on my way out, and it's kind of exciting.' I see it as kind of exciting, too.”
“I liked Hemingway better before I began to be called 'Hemingwayesque.'”
“I am not a team player, including my inadequacies as a parent.”
“I wrote a lot of 'Driving on the Rim' by giving myself the gift of being just as eccentric as I felt like.”