“Up to a point a person’s life is shaped by environment, heredity, and changes in the world about them. Then there comes a time when it lies within their grasp to shape the clay of their life into the sort of thing they wish it to be. Only the weak blame parents, their race, their times, lack of good fortune or the quirks of fate. Everyone has the power to say, "This I am today. That I shall be tomorrow.”
― Louis L'Amour, quote from The Walking Drum
“Reading without thinking is nothing, for a book is less important for what it says than for what it makes you think.”
― Louis L'Amour, quote from The Walking Drum
“A ship does not sail with yesterday's wind.”
― Louis L'Amour, quote from The Walking Drum
“The mind is a basket . . . if you put nothing in, you get nothing out.”
― Louis L'Amour, quote from The Walking Drum
“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.”
― Louis L'Amour, quote from The Walking Drum
“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.”
― Louis L'Amour, quote from The Walking Drum
“Reading without thinking is as nothing, for a book is less important for what it says than for what it makes you think.”
― Louis L'Amour, quote from The Walking Drum
“Yol Bolsun" (May there be a road) [Louis L'Amour}”
― Louis L'Amour, quote from The Walking Drum
“Evil comes often to a man with money; tyranny comes surely to him without it. I say this, who am Mathurin Kerbouchard, a homeless wanderer upon the earth's far roads. I speak as one who has known hunger and feast, poverty and riches, the glory of the sword and the humility of the defenseless. Hunger inspires no talent, and carried too far, it deadens the faculties and destroys initiative...”
― Louis L'Amour, quote from The Walking Drum
“A knife is sharpened on stone, steel is tempered by fire, but men must be sharpened by men.”
― Louis L'Amour, quote from The Walking Drum
“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.”
― Louis L'Amour, quote from The Walking Drum
“Can you see the future, Kerbouchard?"
"Who would wish to? Our lives hold a veil between anticipation and horror. Anticipation is the carrot suspended before the jackass to keep him moving forward. Horror is what he would see if he took his eyes off the carrot.”
― Louis L'Amour, quote from The Walking Drum
“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)”
― Louis L'Amour, quote from The Walking Drum
“He is a fool who will descend into a well on another man's rope.”
― Louis L'Amour, quote from The Walking Drum
“Victory is not won in miles but in inches.”
― Louis L'Amour, quote from The Walking Drum
“I learned then that many a victory is easier won with words than a sword—and the results are better.”
― Louis L'Amour, quote from The Walking Drum
“Such are the amenities of social life, which oft makes a liar of the best of men.”
― Louis L'Amour, quote from The Walking Drum
“The mind gathers its grain in all fields, storing it against a time of need, then suddenly it bursts into awareness, which men call inspiration or second sight or a gift.”
― Louis L'Amour, quote from The Walking Drum
“If at any time your Prince should pretend your position with him is sure, begin from that moment to feel unsure.”
― Louis L'Amour, quote from The Walking Drum
“He had gathered about him what was considered by many to be the intellectual and artistic elite . . . actually, a group of bored men and libertines who were glib-tongued, talking much of art, literature, and music but without any deep-seated convictions upon any subject aside from their own prejudices. Mainly concerned with their own posturing, they were creatures of fad and whim, seizing upon this writer or that composer and exalting him to the skies until he bored them, then shifting to some other. Occasionally, the artist upon whom they lavished attention were of genuine ability, but more often they possessed some obscurity that gave the dilettantes an illusion of depth and quality. In the majority of cases what was fancied to be profound was simply bad writing, bad painting, or deliberately affected obscurity.”
― Louis L'Amour, quote from The Walking Drum
“Many a small man is considered good while he remains small, but let power come to him, and he becomes a raging fury.”
― Louis L'Amour, quote from The Walking Drum
“Must one seek something? I seek to be seeking, as I learn to be learning. Each book is an adventure as is each day’s horizon.”
― Louis L'Amour, quote from The Walking Drum
Louis L'Amour
Born place: in Jamestown, North Dakota, The United States
Born date March 22, 1908
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“When he was left alone, when he had pulled out one stop after another (for the work required it), Stanley straightened himself on the seat, tightened the knot of the red necktie, and struck. The music soared around him, from the corner of his eye he caught the glitter of his wrist watch, and even as he read the music before him, and saw his thumb and last finger come down time after time with three black keys between them, wringing out fourths, the work he had copied coming over on the Conte di Brescia, wringing that chord of the devil’s interval from the full length of the thirty-foot bass pipes, he did not stop. The walls quivered, still he did not hesitate. Everything moved, and even falling, soared in atonement.
He was the only person caught in the collapse, and afterward, most of his work was recovered too, and it is still spoken of, when it is noted, with high regard, though seldom played.”
― William Gaddis, quote from The Recognitions
“Old Deuteronomy's lived a long time;
He's a Cat who has lived many lives in succession.
He was famous in proverb and famous in rhyme
A long while before Queen Victoria's accession.
Old Deuteronomy's buried nine wives
And more – I am tempted to say, ninety-nine;
And his numerous progeny prospers and thrives
And the village is proud of him in his decline.
At the sight of that placid and bland physiognomy,
When he sits in the sun on the vicarage wall,
The Oldest Inhabitant croaks: "Well, of all …
Things … Can it be … really! … No! … Yes! …
Ho! hi!
Oh, my eye!
My mind may be wandering, but I confess
I believe it is Old Deuteronomy!"
Old Deuteronomy sits in the street,
He sits in the High Street on market day;
The bullocks may bellow, the sheep they may bleat,
But the dogs and the herdsman will turn them away.
The cars and the lorries run over the kerb,
And the villagers put up a notice: ROAD CLOSED —
So that nothing untoward may chance to disturb
Deuteronomy's rest when he feels so disposed
Or when he's engaged in domestic economy:
And the Oldest Inhabitant croaks: "Well of all …
Things … Can it be … really! … No! … Yes! …
Ho! hi!
Oh, my eye!
My sight's unreliable, but I can guess
That the cause of the trouble is Old Deuteronomy!”
― T.S. Eliot, quote from Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats
“Any fool can turn a blind eye but who knows what the ostrich sees in the sand.”
― Samuel Beckett, quote from Murphy
“I don’t care if I die a thousand more times ... I need you to live.”
― Chelsea Fine, quote from Anew
“She was ... unhappy. It was part of her, you could not separate her from it. She was sad the way a horse is strong or a bird flies.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, quote from Palimpsest
Curse of the Bane
Clarissa, or, the Hi...
Drums, Girls & Dange...
Return to Paradise
Trial by Fire
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