278 Quotes by Wallace Stegner

A political animal can be defined as a body that will go on circulating a petition even with its heart cut out.

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

We were going to leave a mark on the world but instead the world left marks on us.

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

Human lives seldom conform to the conventions of fiction. Chekhov says that it is in the beginnings and endings of stories that we are most tempted to lie. I know what he means, and I agree.

But however you might rebel, there was no shedding them. They were your responsibility and there was no one to relieve you of them. They called you Sis. All your life people called you Sis, because that was what you were, or what you became - big sister, helpful sister, the one upon whom everyone depended, the one they all came to for everything from help with homework to a sliver under the fingernail.

We do not write what we know; we write what we want to find out.

We made plenty of mistakes, but we never tripped anybody to gain an advantage, or took illegal shortcuts when no judge was around. We have all jogged and panted it out the whole way.

He used to tell me, 'Do what you like to do. It'll probably turn out to be what you do best.