Larry McMurtry Quote

Is growin' up always miserable? Sonny asked. Nobody seems to enjoy it much. Oh, it ain't necessarily misearble, Sam replied. About eighty percent of the time, I guess. They were silent again, Sam the Lion thinking of the lovely, spritely girl he had once led into the water, right there, where they were sitting. We ought to go to a real fishin' tank next year, Sam said finally. It don't do to think about things like that too much. If she were here now I'd probably be crazy again in about five minutes. Ain't that ridiculous? A half-hour later, when they had gathered up the gear and were on the way to town, he answered his own question. It ain't really, he said. Being crazy about a woman like her's always the right thing to do. Being a decrepit old bag of bones is what's ridiculous.

Larry McMurtry

Is growin' up always miserable? Sonny asked. Nobody seems to enjoy it much. Oh, it ain't necessarily misearble, Sam replied. About eighty percent of the time, I guess. They were silent again, Sam the Lion thinking of the lovely, spritely girl he had once led into the water, right there, where they were sitting. We ought to go to a real fishin' tank next year, Sam said finally. It don't do to think about things like that too much. If she were here now I'd probably be crazy again in about five minutes. Ain't that ridiculous? A half-hour later, when they had gathered up the gear and were on the way to town, he answered his own question. It ain't really, he said. Being crazy about a woman like her's always the right thing to do. Being a decrepit old bag of bones is what's ridiculous.

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About Larry McMurtry

Larry Jeff McMurtry (June 3, 1936 – March 25, 2021) was an American novelist, essayist, and screenwriter whose work was predominantly set in either the Old West or contemporary Texas. His novels included Horseman, Pass By (1962), The Last Picture Show (1966), and Terms of Endearment (1975), which were adapted into films. Films adapted from McMurtry's works earned 34 Oscar nominations (13 wins). He was also a prominent book collector and bookseller.
His 1985 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Lonesome Dove was adapted into a television miniseries that earned 18 Emmy Award nominations (seven wins). The subsequent three novels in his Lonesome Dove series were adapted as three more miniseries, earning eight more Emmy nominations. McMurtry and co-writer Diana Ossana adapted the screenplay for Brokeback Mountain (2005), which earned eight Academy Award nominations with three wins, including McMurtry and Ossana for Best Adapted Screenplay. In 2014, McMurtry received the National Humanities Medal.
Tracy Daugherty's 2023 biography of McMurtry quotes critic Dave Hickey: "Larry is a writer, and it's kind of like being a critter. If you leave a cow alone, he'll eat grass. If you leave Larry alone, he'll write books. When he's in public, he may say hello and goodbye, but otherwise he is just resting, getting ready to go write."