278 Quotes by Wallace Stegner

The Westerner is less a person than a continuing adaptation. The West is less a place than a process.

To try to save for everyone, for the hostile and independent as well as the committed, some of the health that flows down across the green ridges from the skyline, and some of the beauty and spirit that are still available to any resident of the valley who has a moment and the wit to lift up his eyes unto the hills.

Largeness is a lifelong matter. You grow because you are not content not to. You are like a beaver that chews constantly because if it doesn't, it's teeth grow long and lock. You grow because you are a grower; you're large because you can't stand to be small.

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

Talent can't be taught, but it can be awakened.

Water is the true wealth in a dry land.

I am terribly glad to be alive; and when I have wit enough to think about it, terribly proud to be a man and an American, with all the rights and privileges that those words connote; and most of all I am humble before the responsibilities that are also mine. For no right comes without a responsibility, and being born luckier than most of the world's millions, I am also born more obligated.

There it was, there it is, the place where during the best time of our lives friendship had its home and happiness its headquarters.

Youth hasn't got anything to do with chronological age. It's times of hope and happiness.