I may be the wrong person for my life. Thomas McGuane More Quotes by Thomas McGuane More Quotes From Thomas McGuane One of the reasons I'm reluctant to start a novel is it's such an obsessive activity. You get in there, you don't know anything else while you're in there. And that's quite a sacrifice to make, especially for us old guys where time is kind of short. You don't want to disappear for a year; you want to be outdoors. Thomas McGuane start you sacrifice time I'm certainly afraid of not being able to write for some reason. I guess I've had spells of not necessarily writer's block, but something like that. I find that pretty terrifying. Thomas McGuane find something like reason If I get too old to write, or short-term memory loss - that was the one Philip Roth was worried about - if I got to that point, that would be terrible, because everything about my life has been streaming toward writing and having something to say. That would make me feel as though I were in an iron maiden of some kind. Thomas McGuane my-life memory me life I think anybody alert to the inspiration to write has to be kind of sensitized to the unexpected. Thomas McGuane think be-kind unexpected inspiration I wrote a lot of 'Driving on the Rim' by giving myself the gift of being just as eccentric as I felt like. Thomas McGuane gift myself driving giving All the ranchers I know have had back surgery, operations on their rotator cuffs. They all have new knees. I'd like to think I belong to that breed, but I don't. Thomas McGuane new back think know 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. Thomas McGuane yourself me you time Probably, subliminally, I think of the reader as a kind of collaborator. I don't want to say something for the reader that the reader could have said for himself. Thomas McGuane say think want said You never see a teaser for a film on television that doesn't have someone running around a corner with a gun. Have you noticed that?... I think Hollywood has as much responsibility for gun violence as the National Rifle Association. Thomas McGuane you violence gun responsibility I strongly believe that literature can do something that nothing else can do, and that is embody the human spirit. Thomas McGuane nothing something literature believe I've outlived my parents, and I've had some wonderful second chances in life. I feel remarkably uncheated. Thomas McGuane parents some feel life 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. Thomas McGuane friends fear life death I'm a neurotic fiction writer who'd like to be a cowboy. Thomas McGuane writer like cowboy fiction
