Wallace Stegner Quotes - Page 3

Quotes about:

• it is an easy mistake to think that non-talkers are non-feelers.

  Wallace Stegner

  Mistake, Thinking, Easy

  Wallace Stegner (2000). “Angle of Repose”, p.362, Penguin

  13 Copy quote

• We write to make sense of it all.

  Wallace Stegner

  Writing, Make Sense

  10 Copy quote

• Homesickness is a great teacher. It taught me, during an endless rainy fall, that I came from the arid lands, and like where I came from. I was used to dry clarity and sharpness in the air. I was used to horizons that either lifted into jagged ranges or rimmed the geometrical circle of the flat world. I was used to seeing a long way. I was used to earth colors--tan, rusty red, toned white--and the endless green of Iowa offended me. I was used to a sun that came up over mountains and went down behind other mountains. I missed the color and smell of sagebrush, and the sight of bare ground.

  Wallace Stegner

  Teacher, Fall, Sight

  15 Copy quote

• Faith can reclaim deserts as well as move mountains.

  Wallace Stegner

  Moving, Mountain, Desert

  Wallace Stegner (1971). “Angle of Repose”, Penguin Group USA

  7 Copy quote

• Touch. It is touch that is the deadliest enemy of chastity, loyalty, monogamy, gentility with its codes and conventions and restraints. By touch we are betrayed and betray others ... an accidental brushing of shoulders or touching of hands ... hands laid on shoulders in a gesture of comfort that lies like a thief, that takes, not gives, that wants, not offers, that awakes, not pacifies. When one flesh is waiting, there is electricity in the merest contact.

  Wallace Stegner

  Loyalty, Lying, Hands

  14 Copy quote

• I was shaped by the west and have lived most of my life in it, and nothing would gratify me more than to see it in all its subregions and subcultures both prosperous and environmentally healthy, with a civilization to match its scenery.

  Wallace Stegner

  Civilization, Healthy, West

  Wallace Earle Stegner (1995). “Where the bluebird sings to the lemonade springs: living and writing in the West”, Random House Value Pub

  7 Copy quote

• Every book that anyone sets out on is a voyage of discovery that may discover nothing. Any voyager may be lost at sea, like John Cabot. Nobody can teach the geography of the undiscovered. All he can do is encourge the will to explore, plus impress upon the inexperienced a few of the dos and don'ts of voyaging.

  Wallace Stegner

  Teaching, Book, Discovery

  Wallace Stegner (2002). “On Teaching and Writing Fiction”, p.28, Penguin

  8 Copy quote

• We are the only species which, when it chooses to do so, will go to great effort to save what it might destroy.

  Wallace Stegner

  Nature, Effort, Might

  14 Copy quote

• I balked at nothing, I was above nothing. Everything had something to teach me.

  Wallace Stegner

  Teach

  7 Copy quote

• It is somethingit can be everything-to have found a fellow bird with whom you can sit among the rafters while the drinking and boasting and reciting and fighting go on below.

  Wallace Stegner

  Drinking, Fighting, Bird

  Wallace Stegner (1990). “The Spectator Bird”, p.131, Penguin

  8 Copy quote

• Are you a reader? If you aren't a reader, you might as well forget trying to be a writer.

  Wallace Stegner

  Trying, Might, Forget

  Wallace Stegner, James Hepworth (1998). “Stealing Glances: Three Interviews with Wallace Stegner”

  7 Copy quote

• The life we all live is amateurish and accidental; it begins in accident and proceeds by trial and error toward dubious ends.

  Wallace Stegner

  Life, Errors, Dubious

  Wallace Earle Stegner (1995). “Where the bluebird sings to the lemonade springs: living and writing in the West”, Random House Value Pub

  4 Copy quote

• A teacher enlarges people in all sorts of ways besides just his subject matter.

  Wallace Stegner

  Teacher, Teaching, People

  Wallace Stegner (2007). “Crossing to Safety”, p.86, Modern Library

  13 Copy quote

• When I was twenty I was in love with words, a wordsmith. I didn't know enough to know when people were letting words get in their way. Now I like the words to disappear, like a transparent curtain.

  Wallace Stegner

  People, Twenties, Way

  4 Copy quote

• Do we respond only to people who seem to find us interesting?

  Wallace Stegner

  People, Interesting, Seems

  Wallace Stegner (2007). “Crossing to Safety”, p.20, Modern Library

  5 Copy quote

• Any life will provide the material for writing, if it is attended to.

  Wallace Stegner

  Writing, Materials, Ifs

  Wallace Stegner (2002). “On Teaching and Writing Fiction”, p.32, Penguin

  7 Copy quote

• In fiction I think we should have no agenda but to tell the truth.

  Wallace Stegner

  Thinking, Should Have, Fiction

  4 Copy quote

• No one who has studied Western history can cling to the belief that the Nazis invented genocide.

  Wallace Stegner

  Belief, Genocide, Nazi

  Wallace Stegner (2000). “Wolf Willow: A History, a Story, and a Memory of the Last Plains Frontier”, p.78, Penguin

  5 Copy quote

• Fossil energy is the worst discovery man ever made, and his disruption of the carbon-oxygen cycle is the greatest of his triumphs over nature. Through thinner and thinner air we labor toward our last end, conquerors finally of even the earth chemistry that created us.

  Wallace Stegner

  Men, Air, Discovery

  5 Copy quote

• This early piece of the morning is mine.

  Wallace Stegner

  Morning, Pieces, Mines

  Wallace Stegner (2007). “Crossing to Safety”, p.5, Modern Library

  7 Copy quote

• No life goes past so swiftly as an eventless one, no clock spins like a clock whose days are all alike.

  Wallace Stegner

  Past, Clock

  Wallace Stegner (1971). “Angle of Repose”, Penguin Group USA

  8 Copy quote

• Water is the true wealth in a dry land.

  Wallace Stegner

  Land, Water, Dry

  15 Copy quote

• Expose a child to a particular environment at this susceptible time and he will perceive in the shapes of that environment until he dies.

  Wallace Stegner

  Inspirational, Motivational, Education

  Wallace Stegner (2000). “Wolf Willow: A History, a Story, and a Memory of the Last Plains Frontier”, p.36, Penguin

  8 Copy quote

• History is not the proper midden for digging up novelties. Perhaps that is one reason why a nation bent on novelty ignores it.

  Wallace Stegner

  Digging, Reason Why, Novelty

  Wallace Stegner (2008). “The Twilight of Self Reliance: Frontier Values and Contemporary America”

  9 Copy quote

• How much wilderness do the wilderness-lovers want? ask those who would mine and dig and cut and dam in such sanctuary spots as these. The answer is easy: Enough so that there will be in the years ahead a little relief, a little quiet, a little relaxation, for any of our increasing millions who need and want it.

  Wallace Stegner

  Cutting, Years, Relaxation

  7 Copy quote

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