Wallace Stegner · 563 pages
Rating: (5.9K votes)
“There was somewhere, if you knew where to find it, some place where money could be made like drawing water from a well, some Big Rock Candy Mountain where life was effortless and rich and unrestricted and full of adventure and action, where something could be had for nothing.”
― Wallace Stegner, quote from The Big Rock Candy Mountain
“People, he had said, were always being looked at as points, and they ought to be looked at as lines. There weren't any points, it was false to assume that a person ever was anything. He was always becoming something, always changing, always continuous and moving, like the wiggly line on a machine used to measure earthquake shocks. He was always what he was in the beginning, but never quite exactly what he was; he moved along a line dictated by his heritage and his environment, but he was subject to every sort of variation within the narrow limits of his capabilities.
...
She shut her mind on that too. There was danger in looking at people as lines. The past spread backward and you saw things in perspective that you hadn't seen then, and that made the future ominous, more ominous than if you just looked at the point, at the moment. There might be truth in what Bruce said, but there was not much comfort.”
― Wallace Stegner, quote from The Big Rock Candy Mountain
“Where do I belong in this country? Where is home?”
― Wallace Stegner, quote from The Big Rock Candy Mountain
“girl of eighteen named Elsa Norgaard,”
― Wallace Stegner, quote from The Big Rock Candy Mountain
“within yourself, you became a grave for her as you were a grave for Chet, and you carried your dead unquietly within you. —”
― Wallace Stegner, quote from The Big Rock Candy Mountain
Wallace Stegner
Born place: in Lake Mills, Iowa, The United States
Born date February 18, 1909
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“Anatomy of a Movement
Senator Bill Bradley defines a movement as having three elements: (1) A narrative that tells a story about who we are and the future we're trying to build. (2) A connection between and among the leader and the tribe. (3) Something to do - the fewer limits the better. Too often organizations fail to do anything but the third.”
― Seth Godin, quote from Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us
“I could hear him swallowing hard, trying not to cry. Why is it that we always try to be brave at moments when bravery is futile?”
― Douglas Kennedy, quote from The Pursuit of Happiness
“school). He has a very posh English accent and strides around with a walking stick, swearing like a maniac.”
― John van de Ruit, quote from Spud
“It is now. It is always now. Now is good. Now could be the best. My name is Catcher. My name was Catcher.
My name...my name...
I am...
I am lost, I am found and then I am free and I am happy.
When I jump over that edge, someone leaps with me, shoulder to shoulder. I smell kinship on him. Kinship is all. I'm not alone.
Never alone.
I land, earth below me, moon above. I am wolf. We are pack.
And that is all I need.”
― Rob Thurman, quote from Roadkill
“Did something happen with you and that guy Vlad at that party Friday night?"
Dread creeps over my skin. "Why?"
"Hmm, okay. I don't really know how to put this, but...well, he was telling everybody today that you guys are dating and that you're his soul mate and that you're going to get married."
"What?"”
― A.M. Robinson, quote from Vampire Crush
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