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"54 Wallace Stegner Quotes & Sayings

      American     /     View profile
Born: 18 February 1909. Died: 13 April 1993 | Novelist | Writer | Environmentalist | Historian |

Wisdom. . .is knowing what you have to accept.

Wisdom Knowing You Accept
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Most things break, including hearts. The lessons of life amount not to wisdom, but to scar tissue and callus.

Amount Break Hearts Including
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A teacher enlarges people in all sorts of ways besides just his subject matter.

Besides His Just Matter
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It is an easy mistake to think that non-talkers are non-feelers.

It is an easy mistake to think that non-talkers are non-feelers.
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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.

Wisdom Beginning Recognize Best
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The lessons of life amount not to wisdom, but to scar tissue and callus. Life

The lessons of life amount not to wisdom But to scar tissue and callus. Life
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He used to tell me, 'Do what you like to do. It'll probably turn out to be what you do best.

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

Place Best Time Friendship
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Be proud of every scar on your heart, each one holds a lifetime’s worth of lessons.

Proud Scar Heart Holds
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She had rooms in her mind that she would not look into.
She Room Mind Look
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There is a sense in which we are all each other's consequences.

Sense There Consequences
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We write to make sense of it all.

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

Youth Chronological Hope Happiness
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You'll do what you think you want to do, or what you think you ought to do. If you're very lucky, luckier than anybody I know, the two will coincide.

Do Think You Lucky
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Towns are like people. Old ones often have character, the new ones are interchangeable.

Town People Old Ones
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I shall be richer all my life for this sorrow
Shall I Richer Life
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Our last impression of her as she turned the corner was that smile, flung backward like a handful of flowers.
Last Impression Smile Handful
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Do we respond only to people who seem to find us interesting?
Do We Respond Find
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In a way, it is beautiful to be young and hard up. With the right wife, and I had her, deprivation became a game.
Young Beautiful Right Wife
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You can't retire to weakness -- you've got to learn to control strength.

You Retire Weakness Learn
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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.

Love Friendship Sanctity Celebration
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Wherever you find the greatest good, you will find the greatest evil, because evil loves paradise as much as good.

Find Greatest Good Evil
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You married me...but you didn't marry what you could make out of me.

You Married Marry What
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No life goes past so swiftly as an eventless one, no clock spins like a clock whose days are all alike.
Life Goes Past Eventless
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Hope was always out ahead of fact, possibility obscured the outlines of reality.
Hope Always Ahead Possibility
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It's easier to die than to move ... at least for the Other Side you don't need trunks.

Easier Move Side Trunks
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Faith can reclaim deserts as well as move mountains.
Faith Reclaim Desert Move
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A writer is an organism that will go on writing even after its heart has been cut out.

Writer Organism Writing Heart
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This early piece of the morning is mine.
Early Piece Morning Mine
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Nothing is so safe as habit, even when habit is faked.

Nothing Safe Habit Faked
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Creation is a knack which is empowered by practice, and like almost any skill, it is lost if you don't practice it.

Creation Knack Empowered Practice
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I know no way of discounting the doctrine that when you take something you want, and damn the consequences, then you had better be ready to accept whatever consequences ensue.

Know Discounting Doctrine Take
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We made plenty of mistakes, but we never tripped anybody to gain an advantage, or took illegal shortcuts when no judge was around. We have all jogged and panted it out the whole way.

Made Plenty Mistakes Never
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hope they have found enough pleasure along the way so that they don't want it ended.

Hope Have Found Pleasure
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There is some history that I want not to have happened. I resist the consequences of being Nemesis.

Some History Have Happened
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To have so little, and it of so little value, was to be quaintly free.

Have Little Value Quaintly
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Survival, it is called. Often it is accidental, sometimes it is engineered by creatures or forces that we have no conception of, always it is temporary.

Survuval Called Acidental Engineered
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Satisfying natural desires is fine, but natural desires have a way of being both competitive and consequential.

Satisfying Natural Desire Way
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Poetry ought to be a by-product of living, and you can't have a by-product unless you've got a product first.

Poetry Product Living Got
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When you marry into a Mormon family you marry tribes and nations.

Marry Mormon Family Marry
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...you must have brought something. Books? I never saw you without a green bag of books.

You Must Brought Books
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Well, there's so much to read, and I'm so far behind.
Well Much Read Behind
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The meeting of writer and reader is an intimate act, and it properly takes place in private.

Meeting Writer Reader Intimate
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Wisdom is knowing what you can accept.

Wisdom Knowing What Accept
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After a day and a half or so the traveler will realize that crossing the continent by Interstate he gets to know the country about as well as a cable messenger knows the sea bottom.

Day Half Traveler Realize
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If you avoid the killer diseases and keep the degenerative ones under control with sensible diet and exercise and whatever chemotherapy you need to stay in balance, you can live nearly forever.

You Avoid Killer Degenerative
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There is a sense in which we are all each other’s consequences.

There Sense Each Consequences
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Anyone who reads, even one from the remote Southwest at the far end of an attenuated tradition, is to some extent a citizen of the world, and I had been a hungry reader all my life.

Read Remote Southwest Tradition
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What little strength he had left flowed out of him and was soaked up; his bones and veins and skin held nothing but tiredness and pain.

Pain.strength Flowed Soaked Bones
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Something will have gone out of us as a people if we ever let the remaining wilderness be destroyed.

Something Gone People Remaining
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Wallace Stegner Quotes & Sayings