Louis L'Amour

Author

1908-03-22

Quotes by Louis L'Amour

• Because a man plays a king superbly well does not mean that he would make a good king.

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• Our world is made up of a myriad of microcosms, of tiny worlds, each with its own habitues, every one known to the others.

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• Many a small man is considered good while he remains small, but let power come to him, and he becomes a raging fury.

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• Personally, I do not believe the human mind has any limits but those we impose ourselves.

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• It means little to anybody but us. We set store by kinfolk. We've our troubles from time to time, but when one of us is in danger, there'll be help from any who are around.

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• Evil comes often to a man with money; tyranny comes surely to him without it. I say this, who am Mathurin Kerbouchard, a homeless wanderer upon the earth's far roads. I speak as one who has known hunger and feast, poverty and riches, the glory of the sword and the humility of the defenseless. Hunger inspires no talent, and carried too far, it deadens the faculties and destroys initiative...

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• Much of the study of history is a matter of comparison, of relating what was happening in one area to what was happening elsewhere, and what had happened in the past. To view a period in isolation is to miss whatever message it has to offer.

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• There are many ways of fighting. Many a man or woman has waged a good war for truth, honor, and freedom, who did not shed blood in the process. Beware of those who would use violence, too often it is the violence they want and neither truth nor freedom.

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• Historical novels are, without question, the best way of teaching history, for they offer the human stories behind the events and leave the reader with a desire to know more.

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• Browsing through the shelves in bookstores or libraries, I was completely happy.

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• It is a poor sort of man who is content to be spoon-fed knowledge that has been filtered through the canon of religious or political belief, and it is a poor sort of man who will permit others to dictate what he may or may not learn.

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• A journey is time suspended.

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• Education is everywhere, prompting one to think, to consider, to remember.

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• Actually, all education is self-education. A teacher is only a guide, to point out the way, and no school, no matter how excellent, can give you education. What you receive is like the outlines in a child's coloring book. You must fill in the colors yourself.

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• Folks who have lived the cornered sort of life most scholars, teachers, and storekeepers live seldom realize what they've missed in the way of conversation. Some of the best talk and the wisest talk I've ever heard was around campfires, in saloons, bunkhouses, and the like. The idea that all the knowledge of the world is bound up in schools and schoolteachers is a mistaken one.

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• The key to understanding any people is in its art: its writing, painting, sculpture.

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• If you're going to be a writer, the first essential is just to write. Do not wait for an idea. Start writing something and the ideas will come. You have to turn the faucet on before the water starts to flow.

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• The Apache don't have a word for love, he said. Know what they both say at the marriage? The squaw-taking ceremony?Tell me.Varlebena. It means forever. That's all they say.

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• The desert was a school, a school where each day, each hour, a final examination was offered, where failure meant death and the buzzards landed to correct the papers.

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• It is brutal. Only I never could see the sense in having folks look at your tombstone and say, 'He was a man who didn't believe in violence, He's a good man... and dead.

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