Quotes from Louis L'Amour

Uninformed he might be, unintelligent he was not

he who ceases to learn is already a half-dead man. And do not be like an oyster who rests on the sea bottom waiting for the good things to come by. Search for them, find them.

You killed Rice Wheeler, he said, the Panhandle gunman. He should have stayed in the Panhandle, I said.

It is my privilege. It is so written.

Yet moaning and wailing was not my way. I had never complained, for who cares for complaints? If something is wrong, one does something.

And the two men walked down the street side by side, Ab Kale and his son.…

Any time a man comes along and says 'Indians' or 'Mexicans' or 'Englishmen' he's bound to be wrong. Each man is a person unto himself, and you'll find good, bad, and indifferent wherever you go.

For three days, Shandy Gamble had been lying on his back in the Perigord House awaiting the stranger in the black mustache. Nichols, his name was, and if they were ever going to start cattle buying they had better be moving. The season was already late.

Once he paused near a small stream to watch a dipper bob up and down on a rock. He saw a school of trout lurking in a shady place where a branch hung low on the water. No amount of seeing ever made nature old to him, and he was conscious of every movement and sound.

One cannot begin too young nor linger too long with learning.

It is easy to destroy a book, but an idea once implanted has roots no man can utterly destroy.

The trouble with being on the wrong side of the law was the kind of company you had to keep.

There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. That will be the beginning.

I was raised up where folks looked to the hills, only up where we came from you hadn't chance to look much higher, we were that near the top of the ridge.

passed the station, the stationmaster leaned out. "Didn't think you could do it, mister! Some shootin'!" "Thanks Ã¢â'¬Â¦ And thanks for the warning." He indicated the dead man. "Better get him out of the street. He's a big man and he'll spoil mighty fast." He started Buck toward the Botalla trail. Whatever was going to happen

We sprung from thin soil, and raised more kin than crops, but we were proud folk...

Thunder rolled like a distant avalanche in the mountain valleys.…

Them Injuns. Takin' the country off 'em. In good times it must've been a fine life they had, huntin' and fishin' or driftin' down the country on the trail of the buffalo. I ain't sure what we'll do to the country will be any better.

They tell us, Sir, that we are weak, unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be next week? Will it be next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed and a guard stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Sir, we are not weak if we make proper use of those means which the God of nature has placed in our power.

There is no greater role for a man to play than to assist in the government of a people, nor anyone lower than he who misuses that power.

How much can a man endure? How long could a man continue? These things I asked myself, for I am a questioning man, yet even as I asked the answers were there before me. If he be a man indeed, he must always go on, he must always endure. Death is an end to torture, to struggle, to suffering, but it is also an end to warmth, light, the beauty of a running horse, the smell of damp leaves, of gunpowder, the walk of a woman when she knows someone watches. . . these things, too, are gone.

We were young then, and the West was young, with the land broad and bright before us. We knew, whatever the truth was, that every horse could be ridden, every man whipped, every girl loved.

Folks in the wagon train figured Ma would turn back, but they hadn't known Ma so long as I had. Once she set her mind to something she wasn't about to quit.

For our age-old enemies await us always, just beyond our thin walls. Hunger, thirst, and cold lie waiting there, and forever among us are those who would loot, rape, and maim rather than behave as civilized men. If we sit secure this hour, this day, it is because the thin walls of the law stand between us and evil. A jolt of the earth, a revolution, an invasion or even a violent upset in our own government can reduce all to chaos, leaving civilized man naked and exposed.