I had just settled Grandma on her folding chair and popped open our box lunch when the corpse floated by. Thomas McGuane More Quotes by Thomas McGuane More Quotes From Thomas McGuane The mountains paralleled the valley and the snowy peaks were extending with fall to the valley floor. Thomas McGuane valleys mountain fall After fifty years of living, it occurs to me that the most significant thing that people do is go to work, whether it is to go to work on their novel or at the assembly plant or fixing somebody's teeth. Thomas McGuane significant-things work years In the future, I mean to be a fine streamside entomologist. I'm going to start on that when I am much too old to do any of the two thousand things I can think of that are more fun than screening insects in cold running water Thomas McGuane running fun mean I like young girls. Their stories are shorter. Thomas McGuane girl stories i-like-you Literature is the ditch I'm going to die in. It's still the thing I care most about. Thomas McGuane scary literature writing By your late thirties the ground has begun to grow hard. It grows harder and harder until the day that it admits you. Thomas McGuane harder late grows Giving freaks a pass is the oldest tradition in Montana. Thomas McGuane montana freak giving The essence of sport is courage. Thomas McGuane essence sports I had a kind of tough early life. I had a tough time in school. I had an unsympathetic family in terms of what I was trying to do. I decided that my family situation was simply hopeless. I kinda bailed out, and my brother and sister didn't. I failed at marriage, which I'm very upset with myself over. Thomas McGuane myself marriage family life Anglers who see fish exceptionally well can fish successfully in less productive water than anglers who don't. Fishermen love equipment and are always looking for mechanical advantages, but there is nothing to compare with learning to see well; if you see well enough, you can walk out in the mud with no boat and catch fish. Thomas McGuane walk learning love water Summertime in Montana, I become a monosyllabic baboon. I want to ride with the cowboys, go to brandings, doctor cattle, and train my horses. But in a few months, the snow starts to fly. The days become shorter; the yellow color of interior light becomes delicious. I look at my shelves, and every book just glows, and I want to be inside of that. Thomas McGuane fly doctor ride light I've spent as much of my life fishing as decency allowed, and sometimes I don't let even that get in my way. Thomas McGuane my-life fishing sometimes life Marriage is anti-romantic - husband and wife are terms like 'turkey' and 'goose.' Worse, they denote ownership. Thomas McGuane turkey marriage wife husband My friends seem to think that an hour and a half effort a day is all they need to bring to the altar to make things work for them. I couldn't do that. I thought that if you didn't work at least as hard as the guy who runs a gas station, then you had no right to hope for achievement. You certainly had to work all day, every day. Thomas McGuane day achievement hope work One of the illusions that we live by is that we can really know anybody else, and we're often surprised by traits in people that we thought we knew very well. The struggle to overcome loneliness, which is sort of our universal burden, leads us to leap to conclusions about who other people are. Thomas McGuane live loneliness struggle people There's a view of Montana writing that seems stage-managed by the Chamber of Commerce - it's all about writers like A. B. Guthrie and Ivan Doig. It used to bother me that nobody had a scene where somebody was delivering a pizza. Thomas McGuane nobody view me pizza I'm not considered as illegitimate as I once was. Because in a sense, I'm like lip cancer - I'm not going to go away. Thomas McGuane going go like cancer My twenties were entirely taken up with literature. Entirely. Thomas McGuane were up taken literature People don't understand how much influence they can actually have on a writer, how much a writer's feelings can be hurt, how much they can deflect his course when they raise their voices like they did over highly personal books like 'Panama' or 'Bullet Park.' Thomas McGuane understand influence hurt people I really do love 'Panama.' But I'd also have to admit that right now, if I were driven to write another novel like that, I wouldn't even try to find a publisher for it. It simply wouldn't be published. I'd be writing it to put in my closet upstairs. Thomas McGuane find try writing love
