Returning to Earth Quotes

“[...] I finally understood that death and numbers don't cohere. Everyone is 'one.' An accident report might say that nine died, four of them in their teens, but each death was 'one.' Each of six million Jews was 'one.' With death it is a series of 'ones.”
― Jim Harrison, Returning to Earth

“I have this sense of being a prematurely old man in a quarrel with himself over the worth of his life, a hopelessly bullshit notion.”
― Jim Harrison, Returning to Earth

“I've been lucky to spend a life pretty close to the earth up here in the north. I learned in those three days that the earth is so much more than I ever thought it was. It was a gift indeed to see all sides of everything at once. This makes it real hard to say good-bye. My family will be with me just like that old raven falling slowly down through the tree.”
― Jim Harrison, Returning to Earth

“It takes a long time for a father to drive the love out of a child.”
― Jim Harrison, Returning to Earth

“I hadn't noticed the green of summer enough and now the colors were gray and white and black.”
― Jim Harrison, Returning to Earth

“Animals spend a lot of time being still so when we do they lose their logical mistrust of us.”
― Jim Harrison, Returning to Earth

“But then that's an appropriate response to death?' I interrupted.

'There isn't a singular response. You keep on truckin', as that cartoonist Crumb said. You're probably having a thousand responses a day because your brain simply can't stop trying to comprehend what has happened to you. It's the largest question mark we deal with in life and no responses will make it go away. We envy the devout who experience the pain but have a surefire explanation.”
― Jim Harrison, Returning to Earth

“He told his son, who was my grandfather, that he would have buried himself with Sally but couldn’t figure out how.”
― Jim Harrison, Returning to Earth