“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.”

American poet, novelist, and essayist

Jim Harrison was an American poet, novelist, and essayist. He wrote across the 20th and early 21st centuries, and remains best known for the range of his work and for the poems he valued most. He is associated with 113 quotes on this site. Harrison published more than three dozen books in poetry, fiction, nonfiction, children’s literature, and memoir. He also wrote screenplays, book reviews, and literary criticism, and he published essays on food, travel, and sport. Among his many forms, he said poetry mattered most to him.