“Never before have the American people had their noses so deeply in one another's business. If I announce that I and eleven other diners shared a thirty-seven-course lunch that likely cost as much as a new Volvo station wagon, Those of a critical nature will let their minds run in tiny, aghast circles of condemnation. My response to them is that none of us twelve disciples of gourmandise wanted a new Volvo. We wanted only lunch and since lunch lasted approximately eleven hours we saved money by not having to buy diner. The defense rests.”

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.