Quotes from Louis L'Amour

The mind is a basket . . . if you put nothing in, you get nothing out.

There are shadows for the shadows of things, as a reflection seen in a mirror of a mirror. We know there are circles within circles and dimensions beyond dimension. Reality is itself a shadow, only an appearance accepted by those whose eyes shun what might lie beyond.

To die is nothing. One is here, one is no longer here. It is only at the end one must be able to say 'I was a man'.

Like I say, I killed a man or two but I'm no thief. My ma raised me better.

What is education but a conditioning of the mind to a society and a way of life.

A writer's brain is like a magician's hat. If you're going to get anything out of it, you have to put something in it first

The best of all things is to learn. Money can be lost or stolen, health and strength may fail, but what you have committed to your mind is yours forever.

After a few days, I mused, I would have no trouble. Whoever heard of a revolution of fat men?

When at the typewriter I am no longer where I site but am away across the mountains, in ancient cities or on the Great Plains among the buffalo. Often I think of what pitiful fools are those who use mind-altering drugs to seek feelings they do not have, each drug taking a little more from what they have of mind, leaving them a little less. Give the brain encouragement from study, from thinking, from visualizing, and no drugs are needed.

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.

Up to a point a man's life is shaped by environment, heredity, and movements and changes in the world about him; then there comes a time when it lies within his grasp to shape the clay of his life into the sort of thing he wishes to be. Only the weak blame parents, their race, their times, lack of good fortune, or the quirks of fate. Everyone has it within his power to say, this I am today, that I shall be tomorrow. The wish, however, must be implemented by deeds.

Lie to a liar, for lies are his coin; steal from a thief, for that is easy; lay a trap for the trickster and catch him at the first attempt, but beware of an honest man. (said by the author to be a Somali saying)

People only talk about how wonderful youth is when they have forgotten how hard it was.

You can make laws against weapons but they will be observed only by those who don't intend to use them anyway. The lawless can always smuggle or steal or even make a gun. By refusing to wear a gun you allow the criminal to operate with impunity.

A journey is time suspended.

People have a greater tolerance for evil than for violence. If crooked gamboling, thieving and robing are covered over folks will tolerate it longer than out right violence, even when the violence may be cleansing.

Womenfolks have powerful imaginations when it comes to a man, an' she can read things into him he never knew was there, and like as not, they ain't!

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.

I really learned how to write from Robert Louis Stevenson, Anthony Trollope, and de Maupassant.

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

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

I've noticed...that whenever a man is asked to be realistic he is being asked to betray something in which he believes. It is the favorite argument of those who believe that only the end matters, not the means.

A great book begins with an idea; a great life, with a determination

A man marries by accident, a woman by design.