278 Quotes by Wallace Stegner

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

A poem isn’t selfish. It speaks to people.

He cited me her own remark that she wrote from the protected point of view, the woman’s point of view, as evidence that she went through her life from inexperience to inexperience.

He says that when asked if he feels like an old man he replies that he does not, he feels like a young man.

The only life we know well, the one on which we are the ultimate authority, is our own. The only experience to which we can bear witness is that which we have personally endured and observed.

Somewhere, sometime, somebody taught her to question everything – though it might have been a good thing if he’d also taught her to question the act of questioning.

It 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 another’s ambitions.

The writers I admired and still admire were not carpenters, but more like sculptors. Their art was and is a real probing of real and troubling human confusions.

It is the beginning of wisdom when you recognize that the best you can do is choose which rules you want to live by, and it’s persistent and aggravated imbecility to pretend you can live without any.