74 Quotes by Kent Haruf

Death is a fact of life, no matter where you live. Taking care of the dying is a necessity everywhere. Those are not conditions exclusive to small towns.

I enjoy bluegrass, folk, gospel, and classical. I don't listen to music when I write. I sometimes listen to music just before I sit down to write.

In terms of showing their emotions and acting on them, my women characters are a lot more advanced than the men.

Honey, Maggie Jones said. Victoria. Listen to me. You're here now. This is where you are.

After finishing the first draft, I work for as long as it takes (for two or three weeks, most often) to rework that first draft on a computer. Usually that involves expansion: filling in and adding to, but trying not to lose the spontaneous, direct sound. I use that first draft as a touchstone to make sure everything else in that section has the same sound, the same tone and impression of spontaneity.

That was on a night in August. Dad Lewis died early that morning and the young girl Alice from next door got lost in the evening and then found her way home in the dark by the streetlights of town and so returned to the people who loved her. And in the fall the days turned cold and the leaves dropped off the trees and in the winter the wind blew from the mountains and out on the high plains of Holt County there were overnight storms and three-day blizzards.

I began writing seriously in my mid-20s and didnt publish my first book until I was 41.

Fame isn't healthy for a writer.

My desire is to be anonymous, isolated, quiet, peaceful, and concentrated.