Thomas McGuane Quotes

Most men are fragile.

Very few males have the confidence to appear vulnerable.

It's 2016. Men are more vulnerable than ever.

In today's society, a lot of males think you have to be strong all the time, and you're not allowed to show weakness. That's just so false.

To be weak, and to know it, is something of a punishment for a proud man.

I wish I'd known that apologizing is a sign of strength. I had the impression that if you apologize, it's a sign of weakness. I kind of picked up the message from my father, 'Real men don't apologize. You just do your best, and if you happen to hurt some people, that's their fault. You just go on. Don't apologize. That's a sign of weakness.'

We're raised to believe that asking for help - that not having all the answers - is a sign of weakness, somehow challenging our manhood.

Everyone's more vulnerable than they seem, and I think men are more vulnerable. Once you get close to a man, the whole thing's a facade anyway. I think manhood is fragile.

Man has fallen victim to seduction since times immemorial.

An executive producer with an all-male writing staff once inadvertently revealed his deep, dark fear. While discussing a full-time position for me, he mused out loud, 'I wonder if having a woman in the room will change everything.' Of course, what he really meant was: 'I wonder if having a woman in the room will change me.'

It's easy for guys to listen to another guy for support, but if it's a female, they seem to shy away from it, like they don't want to be a sucker, you know what I'm saying? So we kind of got to go harder.

We men we are so sensitive and we have been placed in a bad role. It's unfair that we're shown without tears, without feelings. My job is to change that stereotype.

You know, men are very tough and they don't want to ever say that they need a break or that they are in pain.

None of us don't have a vice.

It's very important for feminism for us to tell our daughters that they should be strong. But to tell our sons that they can be vulnerable, to have these characters on screen that are not perfectly masculine cowboys that never fail, for our boys to change their psyche as well, that's equally important for feminism.

Brittle masculinity, in the right setting, becomes political atrocity. Strength brings problems; weakness brings others, but weakness posing as strength is the most dangerous of all.

I don't think anybody is perfect.

Boys don't cry. But they do. We do. I do. I weep all the time.

Men just need to be open and not emasculate one another.

Most of my friends are male. And I've known some of them to literally go through mental breakdowns and still not talk about how they feel. Except to me. My shoulders are sodden with the tears of men.

I do believe female directors, as well as our female writer, can bring out male vulnerability that some men can't because they can't face it.

This fear of maleness that they inspire estranges men from every female in their lives to greater or lesser degrees, and men feel the loss. Ultimately, one of the emotional costs of allegiance to patriarchy is to be seen as unworthy of trust. If women and girls in patriarchal culture are taught to see every male, including the males with whom we are intimate, as potential rapists and murderers, then we cannot offer them our trust, and without trust there is no love.

A woman is seldom merciful to the man who is timid.

Poor little men, poor little cocks! As soon as they're old enough, they swell their plumage to be conquerors. If they only knew that it's enough to be just a little bit wounded and sad in order to obtain everything without fighting for it.

Nor is he man enough to make a woman of you.