Quotessence
Home / Authors / Wallace Stegner
Wallace Stegner

Wallace Stegner Quotes

Historian

Filter quotes by topic

AllIfsPeopleWritingThinkingKnowsWantWildernessNeedsWayWestAirCharacterGreenHas BeensHomeLeftLifeLittlesMightPast

Famous Wallace Stegner Quotes

“Every time. You know why? I want to fail. I work like a dog for twenty years so I'll have the supreme pleasure of failing. Never knew anybody like that, did you? I'm very cunning. I plan it in advance. I fool myself right up to the last minute, and then the time comes and I know how cunningly I've been planning it all the time. I've been a failure all my life.”

KnowsWantYearsLastsPleasureKnow HowPlansFailingMinutesDogFoolTwentiesSupremePlanningCunningLast Minute
Author:Wallace Stegner
Create image

“A muddy little stream, a village grown unfamiliar with time and trees. I turn around and retrace my way up Main Street and park and have a Coke in the confectionery store. It is run by a Greek, as it used to be, but whether the same Greek or another I would not know. He does not recognize me, nor I him. Only the smell of his place is familiar, syrupy with old delights, as if the ghost of my first banana split had come close to breathe on me.”

IfsKnowsWayFirstsLittlesDoeRunningUsedTurnsTreeStreetsDelightSmellBreatheStoresGhostFamiliarUsed To BeMy WayGreekStreamsParksVillageSplitsBananasUnfamiliarCokeMuddyMain StreetBanana Splits
Book:Wolf Willow: A History, a Story, and a Memory of the Last Plains Frontier
Create image