Home / Quotes / Quote by Wallace Stegner

Quote by Wallace Stegner

“National parks are the best idea we ever had. Absolutely American, absolutely democratic, they reflect us at our best rather than our worst.”

Quote by Wallace Stegner

Author

Wallace Stegner

Wallace Stegner was an influential American historian known for his extensive research on the history of the American West. His works not only documented the pioneering journey of the American West but also profoundly reflected the relationship between humans and nature. Stegner's writing style was unique and his language beautiful, which won him great popularity among readers. more

You May Also Like

“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.”

People Needs Kind Stills Character Left Challenges Wilderness

Book:The Selected Letters of Wallace Stegner

Source: The Selected Letters of Wallace Stegner

“If the national park is, as Lord Bryce suggested, the best idea America has ever had, wilderness preservation is the highest refinement of that idea.”

Ifs Ideas America Lord Highest Parks Wilderness Preservation Refinement National Parks

Book:Where the bluebird sings to the lemonade springs: living and writing in the West

Source: Where the bluebird sings to the lemonade springs: living and writing in the West

“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.”

Source: Where the bluebird sings to the lemonade springs: living and writing in the West

“Every action is an idea before it is an action, and perhaps a feeling before it is an idea, and every idea rests upon other ideas that have preceded it in time.”

Ideas Feelings Action

Book:Where the bluebird sings to the lemonade springs: living and writing in the West

Source: Where the bluebird sings to the lemonade springs: living and writing in the West

“American individualism, much celebrated and cherished, has developed without its essential corrective, which is belonging.”

Essentials Belonging Individualism

Book:The American West as Living Space

Source: The American West as Living Space

“I am impressed by how much of my grandparent's life depended on continuities, contacts, connections, friendships, and blood relationships.”

Blood Connections Contact Impressed Grandparent Continuity

Book:Angle of Repose

Source: Angle of Repose

“No place is a place until things that have happened in it are remembered in history, ballads, yarns, legends, or monuments. Fictions serve as well as facts.”

Wells Facts Fiction Happened Remembered Legends Monument Ballads Yarn

Book:Where the bluebird sings to the lemonade springs: living and writing in the West

Source: Where the bluebird sings to the lemonade springs: living and writing in the West

“We are the most dangerous species of life on the planet, and every other species, even the earth itself, has cause to fear our power to exterminate. But we are also the only species which, when it chooses to do so, will go to great effort to save what it might destroy.”

Might Earth Causes Nature Effort Dangerous Planets Species Environmental Great Effort

Author:Wallace Stegner

“Any life will provide the material for writing, if it is attended to.”

Ifs Writing Materials

Book:On Teaching and Writing Fiction

Source: On Teaching and Writing Fiction

“The meeting of writer and reader is an intimate act, and it properly takes place in private.”

Reader Meetings Intimate

Book:On Teaching and Writing Fiction

Source: On Teaching and Writing Fiction