Louis L'Amour

“Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on.”

“It is a poor sort of man who is content to be spoon-fed knowledge that has been filtered through the canon of religious or political belief, and it is a poor sort of man who will permit others to dictate what he may or may not learn.”

“Anger is a killing thing: it kills the man who angers, for each rage leaves him less than he had been before - it takes something from him.”

“There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. Yet that will be the beginning.”

“A journey is time suspended.”

“Education is everywhere, prompting one to think, to consider, to remember.”

“Browsing through the shelves in bookstores or libraries, I was completely happy.”

“To disbelieve is easy; to scoff is simple; to have faith is harder.”

“So many things that are so dramatic or exciting when you read about them actually happen so simply and quietly. We humans like to consider ourselves important to creation and to the world, and we expect that whenever death comes it should be with a crash of thunder and wild shouts or something, or with soft music around and people looking grave and serious. We always have it that way in the theatre because it makes us believe in our importance. Most of our life is a matter of dressing ourselves up to believe in just that, dressing ourselves in attractive clothes, in titles, in reputations. Actually, at base we all realize that we're just a frightened bundle of animals, still afraid of the unknown, and still afraid of thousands of things that can separate us from life, and trying to shield ourselves from our own smallness.”

“I'm actually writing history. It isn't what you'd call big history. I don't write about presidents and generals... I write about the man who was ranching, the man who was mining, the man who was opening up the country.”

“The Apache don't have a word for love," he said. "Know what they both say at the marriage? The squaw-taking ceremony?""Tell me.""Varlebena. It means forever. That's all they say.”

“I had begun reading earlier than most because my sister Emmy Lou, no doubt to keep me from bothering her, decided it was easier to teach me to read stories to myself rather than to read them to me, as she had been doing.”

“A great book begins with an idea; a great life, with a determination.”

“I've noticed...that whenever a man is asked to be realistic he is being asked to betray something in which he believes. It is the favorite argument of those who believe that only the end matters, not the means.”

“Someone has said that culture is what remains with you after you have forgotten all you have read, and I believe there is much truth in that.”

“The desert was a school, a school where each day, each hour, a final examination was offered, where failure meant death and the buzzards landed to correct the papers.”

“The key to understanding any people is in its art: its writing, painting, sculpture.”

“...the way I figure, no man has the right to be ignorant. In a country like this, ignorance is a crime. If a man is going to vote, if he's going to take part in his country and its government, then it's up to him to understand.”

“If you want the law to leave you alone, keep your hair trimmed and your boots shined.”

“Personally, I do not believe the human mind has any limits but those we impose ourselves.”