Wallace StegnerWisdom. . .is knowing what you have to accept.372Philosophy
Wallace StegnerSomething will have gone out of us as a people if we ever let the remaining wilderness be destroyed ... so that never again can we have the chance to see ourselves single, separat… ▶373Humanity
Wallace StegnerWe are the most dangerous species of life on the planet, and every other species, even the earth itself, has cause to fear our power to exterminate. But we are also the only speci… ▶375LifePolitics
Wallace StegnerIt's easier to die than to move ... at least for the Other Side you don't need trunks. ✨ Wallace Stegner (1971). Angle of Repose, Penguin Group USA342Death
Wallace StegnerThere must be some other possibility than death or lifelong penance, said the Ellen Ward of my dream, that woman I hate and fear. I am sure she meant some meeting, some intersecti… ▶332DeathHopeLife
Wallace Stegnerit is an easy mistake to think that non-talkers are non-feelers. ✨ Wallace Stegner (2000). Angle of Repose, p.362, Penguin333Thought
Wallace Stegner[Friendship] is a relationship that has no formal shape, there are no rules or obligations or bonds as in marriage or the family, it is held together by neither law nor property n… ▶344Politics
Wallace StegnerOne cannot be pessimistic about the West. This is the native home of hope. When it fully learns that cooperation, not rugged individualism, is the quality that most characterizes … ▶366HopeHumanity
Wallace StegnerI think, don't you, that a girl with any delicacy of feeling couldn't bring herself to marry a man indirectly responsible for her father's death. No matter how much she was in lov… ▶301DeathLoveThought
Wallace StegnerYou have to get over the color green; you have to quit associating beauty with gardens and lawns; you have to get used to an inhuman scale; you have to understand geological time.… ▶356HumanityLifePolitics
Wallace StegnerYoung writers should be encouraged to write, and discouraged from thinking they are writers. If they arrive at college with literary ambitions, they should be told that everything… ▶356Thought
Wallace StegnerDo we respond only to people who seem to find us interesting? ✨ Wallace Stegner (2007). Crossing to Safety, p.20, Modern Library356Humanity
Wallace StegnerSomething will have gone out of us as a people if we ever let the remaining wilderness be destroyed ... We simply need that wild country available to us, even if we never do more … ▶367Humanity
Wallace StegnerWe write to make sense of it all.324Love
Wallace StegnerHow 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… ▶358Love
Wallace StegnerYou can plan all you want to. You can lie in your morning bed and fill whole notebooks with schemes and intentions. But within a single afternoon, within hours or minutes, everyth… ▶314ReadingTime
Wallace StegnerThere it was, there it is, the place where during the best time of our lives friendship had its home and happiness its headquarters. ✨ Wallace Stegner (2007). Crossing to Sa… ▶292Time
Wallace StegnerCreation is a knack which is empowered by practice, and like almost any skill, it is lost if you don't practice it.303Politics
Wallace StegnerYou can't retire to weakness -- you've got to learn to control strength. ✨ Wallace Stegner (2000). Angle of Repose, p.454, Penguin271Humanity
Wallace StegnerHe used to tell me, 'Do what you like to do. It'll probably turn out to be what you do best. ✨ Wallace Stegner (2007). Crossing to Safety, p.51, Modern Library271Reading
Wallace StegnerIn a way, it is beautiful to be young and hard up. With the right wife, and I had her, deprivation became a game. ✨ Wallace Stegner (2007). Crossing to Safety, p.16, Modern … ▶337Reading
Wallace StegnerWhat is such a resource worth? Anything it costs. If we never hike it or step into its shade, if we only drive by occasionally and see the textures of green mountainside change un… ▶327HopeTime
Wallace StegnerThanks to the growing strength of environmental organizations, there will always be some back country to provide us with a touch of wonder and a breath of fresh air.272Truth
Wallace StegnerIt is love and friendship, the sanctity and celebration of our relationships, that not only support a good life, but create one. Through friendships, we spark and inspire one anot… ▶327LifeLove
Wallace StegnerYou married me...but you didn't marry what you could make out of me.272Politics
Wallace StegnerIf the national park is, as Lord Bryce suggested, the best idea America has ever had, wilderness preservation is the highest refinement of that idea. ✨ Wallace Earle Stegner… ▶317LifeThought
Wallace StegnerCivilizations grow by agreements and accomodations and accretions, not by repudiations. The rebels and the revolutionaries are only eddies, they keep the stream from getting stagn… ▶3410DeathHumanityPhilosophy
Wallace StegnerAny life will provide the material for writing, if it is attended to. ✨ Wallace Stegner (2002). On Teaching and Writing Fiction, p.32, Penguin274Life
Wallace StegnerHard writing makes easy reading. ✨ Wallace Stegner (2007). Crossing to Safety, p.158, Modern Library286Reading
Wallace StegnerEvery action is an idea before it is an action, and perhaps a feeling before it is an idea, and every idea rests upon other ideas that have preceded it in time. ✨ Wallace Ea… ▶3210LifeThoughtTime
