Wallace Stegner · 576 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 (Contemporary American Fiction)
“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 (Contemporary American Fiction)
“Where do I belong in this country? Where is home?”
― Wallace Stegner, quote from The Big Rock Candy Mountain (Contemporary American Fiction)
“girl of eighteen named Elsa Norgaard,”
― Wallace Stegner, quote from The Big Rock Candy Mountain (Contemporary American Fiction)
“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 (Contemporary American Fiction)
Wallace Stegner
Born place: in Lake Mills, Iowa, The United States
Born date February 18, 1909
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“We kiss all the time." I clear my throat, then add, "We just...do it in private."
"A smug expression crosses his face. "I don't buy it for a second, 'cause if you were my girlfriend and a stud like me was livin' in your house, I'd kiss you in front of the guy every chance I got as a reminder."
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"Every day," I said hoarsely.
"I missed you every hour. And you know what the worst part was? It caught me completely by surprise. I'd catch myself walking around to find you, not for any reason, just out of habit, because I'd seen something I wanted to tell you about, or because I just wanted to hear your voice. And then I'd realize that you weren't there anymore, and every time, every single time, it was like having the wind knocked out of me. I've risked my life for you. I've walked half the length of Ravka for you, and I'd do it again and again and again just to be with you, just to starve with you and freeze with you and hear you complain about hard cheese every day. So don't tell me we don't belong together," he said fiercely. He was very close now, and my heart was suddenly hammering in my chest. "I'm sorry it took me so long to see you, Alina. But I see you now.”
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