Quotes from Owen Wister

So I perceived a new example of the old truth, that the letter means nothing until the spirit gives it life.

And death is a thing much cleaner than vice.

Molly liked the Virginian for his blush. It made him very handsome. But she thought that it came from his confession about "pretty near crying." The deeper cause she failed to divine,—that he, like the dying hero in the novel, felt himself to be a giant whom life had made "broad gauge," and denied opportunity. Fecund nature begets and squanders thousands of these rich seeds in the wilderness of life.

Many an act that man does is right or wrong according to the time and place which form, so to speak, its context; strip it of its surrounding circumstances, and you tear away its meaning.

And Sam—what did he do? He obeyed her, I should like to be sorry for him. But obedience was not a lover's part here. He hesitated, the golden moment hung hovering, the conductor cried "All aboard!" the train went, and there on the platform stood obedient Sam, with his golden moment gone like a butterfly.

I ain't sure whether you're crazy or not," said he to the man in the lookin-glass. "I ain't never been sure.