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Wallace Stegner

Wallace Stegner Quotes

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Famous Wallace Stegner Quotes

“[T]hat old September feeling, left over from school days, of summer passing, vacation nearly done, obligations gathering, books and football in the air ... Another fall, another turned page: there was something of jubilee in that annual autumnal beginning, as if last year's mistakes had been wiped clean by summer.”

IfsYearsBookDoneFeelingsSchoolLastsFallLeftMistakeAirFootballSummerPagesCleanObligationPassingPassingsHatsAutumnVacationLast YearSeptemberGatheringAnnualsSchool DaysJubilee
Author:Wallace Stegner
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“Something 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, separate, vertical and individual in the world, part of the environment of trees and rocks and soil, part of the natural world and competent to belong in it.”

PeopleIfsWorldIndividualNatureNaturalChanceGoneEnvironmentTreeRocksDestroyedSoilWildernessNatural WorldCompetentVertical
Book:The Selected Letters of Wallace Stegner
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“I gave my heart to the mountains the minute I stood beside this river with its spray in my face and watched it thunder into foam, smooth to green glass over sunken rocks, shatter to foam again. I was fascinated by how it sped by and yet was always there; its roar shook both the earth and me.”

HeartEarthFacesWaterMinutesRocksMy HeartMountainRiversGreenEnvironmentalGlassesFascinatedSmoothThunderSprayFoamRivers And WaterPaddlingSpedWorld Water DayWhite WaterRivers And MountainsCool Water
Book:The Sound of Mountain Water: The Changing American West
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“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.”

PeopleHelpingBigsMightResponsibilityHelpfulRebelHomeworkSisterhoodFingernailsBig Sister
Book:Where the bluebird sings to the lemonade springs: living and writing in the West
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“Every book that anyone sets out on is a voyage of discovery that may discover nothing. Any voyager may be lost at sea, like John Cabot. Nobody can teach the geography of the undiscovered. All he can do is encourge the will to explore, plus impress upon the inexperienced a few of the dos and don'ts of voyaging.”

MayBookLostCan DoTeachSeaTeachingDiscoveryPlusImpressGeographyVoyagesVoyages Of DiscoveryLost At Sea
Book:On Teaching and Writing Fiction
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“How 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 be in the years ahead a little relief, a little quiet, a little relaxation, for any of our increasing millions who need and want it.”

WantNeedsYearsLittlesEnoughAsksEasyAnswersMillionsCuttingMinesLoversQuietSpotsReliefWildernessRelaxationSanctuaryDamsNeeds And Wants
Author:Wallace Stegner
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“There 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 intersection of lines; and some cowardly, hopeful geometer in my brain tells me it is the angle at which two lines prop each other up, the leaning together from the vertical which produces the false arch.”

MayTwoTogetherLinesBrainPossibilityProduceLuckyMeetingsThis LifeHopefulAngleLifelongCowardlyPropsArchesIntersectionsVerticalPenanceKeystones
Author:Wallace Stegner
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“Grub Street turns out good things almost as often as Parnassus. For if a writer is hard up enough, if he’s far down enough (down where I have been and am rising from, I am really saying), he can’t afford self-doubt and he can’t let other people’s opinions, even a father’s, keep him from writing.”

PeopleIfsWritingHas BeensSelfHardEnoughTurnsFatherOpinionDoubtStreetsGood ThingsRisingSelf-doubt
Book:Crossing to Safety
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“Something will have gone out of us as a people if we ever let the remaining wilderness be destroyed We need wilderness preserved — as much of it as is still left, and as many kinds — because it was the challenge against which our character as a people was formed We simply need that wild country available to us, even if we never do more than drive to its edge and look in. For it can be a means of reassuring ourselves of our sanity as creatures, a part of the geography of hope.”

PeopleIfsNeedsLooksKindMeanStillsCountryCharacterLeftChallengesGoneCreaturesEdgesAvailableDestroyedWildernessSanityGeographyReassuring
Author:Wallace Stegner
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“I was shaped by the west and have lived most of my life in it, and nothing would gratify me more than to see it in all its subregions and subcultures both prosperous and environmentally healthy, with a civilization to match its scenery.”

CivilizationHealthyWestProsperousScenerySubculture
Book:Where the bluebird sings to the lemonade springs: living and writing in the West
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“You achieve stature only by being good enough to deserve it, by forcing even the contemptuous and indifferent to pay attention, and to acknowledge that human relations and human emotions are of inexhaustible interest wherever they occur.”

HumansEnoughInterestPayEmotionAttentionAchieveDeserveRelationBe GoodPay AttentionAcknowledgeGood EnoughIndifferentHuman RelationsStatureHuman EmotionsContemptuousBeing Good Enough
Book:Where the bluebird sings to the lemonade springs: living and writing in the West
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“What 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 under wind and sun, or the fog move soft feathers down the gulches, or the last sunset on the continent redden the sky beyond the ridge, we have our money's worth. We have been too efficient at destruction; we have left our souls too little space to breathe in. Every green natural place we save saves a fragment of our sanity and gives us a little more hope that we have a future.”

IfsGivingLittlesHas BeensSoulLastsMovingLeftNaturalSpaceStepsSunSkyWindCostResourcesDestructionGreenBreatheSunsetShadeSanityEfficientContinentsFogFeathersFragmentsTextureRidges
Author:Wallace Stegner
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“Young 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 they have done since their first childhood poems, printed in the school paper, has been preparation for entering a long, long apprenticeship.”

IfsThinkingShouldWritingFirstsLongHas BeensDoneSchoolYoungChildhoodCollegePaperAmbitionPreparationEnteringDiscouragedPrintedBe EncouragedYoung WritersApprenticeship
Author:Wallace Stegner
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