Wallace Earle Stegner

Most things break, including hearts. The lessons of life amount not to wisdom, but to scar tissue and callus.

A teacher enlarges people in all sorts of ways besides just his subject matter.

Hard writing makes easy reading.

It is something-it can be everything-to have found a fellow bird with whom you can sit among the rafters while the drinking and boasting and reciting and fighting go on below.

One means of sanity is to retain a hold on the natural world, ... Americans still have that chance, more than many peoples.

Wilderness, once we have given it up, is beyond our reconstruction.