Quotes from Louis L'Amour

lighting a shuck.

Unthinking people often despise politicians, but if we do not have the best people in politics, it is our own fault. Politics is the art of making civilization work.

He who hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune, for they are impediments to great enterprise.

Once you've read a book you care about, some parts of it always stay with you.

There is no safety anywhere,' he said quietly, 'but you do not seem a man who is used to safety. Ride well.

I like them all. There's bits and pieces of books that I think are good. I never rework a book. I'd rather use what I've learned on the next one, and make it a little bit better. The worst of it is that I'm no longer a kid and I'm just now getting to be a good writer. Just now.

If I were asked what education should give, I would say it should offer breadth of view, ease of understanding, tolerance for others, and a background from which the mind can explore in any direction.

Education should provide the tools for a widening and deepening of life, for increased appreciation of all one sees or experiences. It should equip a person to live life well, to understand what is happening about him, for to live life well one must live with awareness.

Telegram, the uniformed Western Union man said as I opened the door.

you stick your lunch-hooks into my corn bin without I say and you'll catch yourself a death of cold, because I'll open your belly with a shotgun.

the Viper who had plans to invade America from within. Using money as a weapon, he controlled newspaper, radio and recording businesses to further his propaganda efforts and incite an internal rebellion.

done him in! Yuh deny it? Deny it? Lance stared at the man, his eyes watchful. Why, I never heard of Joe Wilkins

He recognized the feeling for what it was - the need within him to protect and care for something beyond himself. It was that in part that these past years had led him to fight so many fights that were not his. And yet, was not the cause of human liberty and freedom always every man's trust? (A Man Called Trent, chapter 1)

For an instant he glared at me from the mud, and then with a burst of fury he came off the ground.

All that was speculation, and a man can get carried away by a reasonable theory. Often a man finds a theory that explains things and he builds atop that theory, finding all the right answers Ã¢â'¬Â¦ only the basic theory is wrong. But that's the last thing he will want to admit.

Boswell's The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.

You never learn anything when you're talkin', boy, only when you're listenin'.

when a man was away from women for months he got to feeling it.

And where, in my time, would my body lie?

It was better to live one day as a lion, than a dozen years as a sheep.

This is our bed. Keep it clean.

the way of men. One fights one's battles alone, not asking mercy nor expecting help.

The old towns, the ghost towns, no longer belong to men. The desert and the mountains have taken them back, gathered them into their arms and made them one with the trees and brush and rocks.

any man who could concentrate for as much as three minutes on any given problem could rule the world.