Louis L'Amour Quotes

She'd never been one to think in terms of years, anyway. A person was what they were, and many a man at forty was sixty in his ways and many another was twenty and would never grow past it.

Personally, I do not believe the human mind has any limits but those we impose ourselves.

It has seemed to me that each year one should pause to take stock of himself, to ask: Where am I going? What am I becoming? What do I wish to do and become?Most people whom I encountered were without purpose, people who had given themselves no goal. The first goal need not be the final one, for a sailing ship sails first by one wind, then another. The point is that it is always going somewhere, proceeding toward a final destination.

It is easy to destroy a book, but an idea once implanted has roots no man can utterly destroy.

He never knew when he was whipped ... so he never was.

Anger is a killing thing: it kills the man who angers for each rage leaves him less than he had been before-it takes something from him.

Pa he always said a man had to look spry for himself because nobody would do it for him your opportunities didn't come knocking around you had to hunt them down and hog-tie them.

Few of us ever live in the present we are forever anticipating what is to come or remembering what has gone.

I've noticed...that whenever a man is asked to be realistic he is being asked to betray something in which he believes. It is the favorite argument of those who believe that only the end matters, not the means.

My future is one I must make myself.

There was a Texas Ranger one time who said that there's no stopping a man who knows he's in the right and keeps a-coming.

A man who says he has never been scared is either lying or else he's never been any place or done anything.

So many things that are so dramatic or exciting when you read about them actually happen so simply and quietly. We humans like to consider ourselves important to creation and to the world, and we expect that whenever death comes it should be with a crash of thunder and wild shouts or something, or with soft music around and people looking grave and serious. We always have it that way in the theatre because it makes us believe in our importance. Most of our life is a matter of dressing ourselves up to believe in just that, dressing ourselves in attractive clothes, in titles, in reputations. Actually, at base we all realize that we're just a frightened bundle of animals, still afraid of the unknown, and still afraid of thousands of things that can separate us from life, and trying to shield ourselves from our own smallness.

Victory is won not in miles but in inches. Win a little now hold your ground and later win a little more.

The wealthy and satisfied do not migrate, they stagnate.

To live in a city, one must be larger than one's environment or enjoy belonging to the crowd.

A body shouldn't heed what might be. He's got to do with what is.

For you and me today is all we have tomorrow is a mirage that may never become reality.

A man can lose sight of everything else when he's bent on revenge and it ain't worth it.

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. ... Everyone has it within his power to say this I am today that I shall be tomorrow.

Once you have read a book you care about, some part of it is always with you.

If you’re going to be a writer, the first essential is just to write. Do not wait for an idea. Start writing something and the ideas will come. You have to turn the faucet on before the water starts to flow.

He might never really do what he said but at least he had it in mind. He had somewhere to go.

I've a regard for law, although I do not always agree with it. Without law, man becomes a beast.

A wise man fights to win but he is twice a fool who has no plan for possible defeat.

To exist is to adapt and if one could not adapt one died and made room for those who could.

Few of us ever live in the present. We are forever anticipating what is to come or remembering what has gone.

Any man can shoot a gun and with practice he can draw fast and shoot accurately but that makes no difference. What counts is how you stand up when somebody is shooting back at you.

Browsing through the shelves in bookstores or libraries, I was completely happy.

Folks who have lived the cornered sort of life most scholars, teachers, and storekeepers live seldom realize what they've missed in the way of conversation. Some of the best talk and the wisest talk I've ever heard was around campfires, in saloons, bunkhouses, and the like. The idea that all the knowledge of the world is bound up in schools and schoolteachers is a mistaken one.

It had been my father's way to remove obstructions, to repair washouts in old trails, to leave each trail better than he had found it. "Tread lightly on the paths," he had told me. "Others will come when you have gone."That was how I would remember my father. There was never a place he walked that was not the better for his having passed. For every tree he cut down he planted two.

When a man is one of a kind, he will be lonely wherever he is.

There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. That will be the beginning.

Indeed, I find that distance lends perspective and I often write better of a place when I am some distance from it. One can be so overwhelmed by the forest as to miss seeing the trees.

Historical novels are, without question, the best way of teaching history, for they offer the human stories behind the events and leave the reader with a desire to know more.

Everyone has it within his power to say this I am today that I shall be tomorrow.

If you want the law to leave you alone, keep your hair trimmed and your boots shined.

Kill him? Would that be it? No man knew better than he the tricks that Destiny plays on a man, or how often the right man dies at the wrong time and place. A man never wore a gun without inviting trouble, he never stepped into a street and began the gunman's walk without the full knowledge that he might be a shade too slow, that some small thing might disturb him just long enough!

Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on.

One learns to adapt to the land in which one lives.

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.

No man is a complete ruler or dictator. He is only the mouthpiece for the wishes of his followers. As long as he expresses those wishes, he leads them.

Someone has said that culture is what remains with you after you have forgotten all you have read, and I believe there is much truth in that.

Education is everywhere, prompting one to think, to consider, to remember.

I have been nothing ... but there is tomorrow.

The one law that does not change is that everything changes and the hardship I was bearing today was only a breath away from the pleasures I would have tomorrow and those pleasures would be all the richer because of the memories of this I was enduring.

It is better to have no emotion when it is work. Do what needs to be done and do it coolly.

Because a man plays a king superbly well does not mean that he would make a good king.

People have a greater tolerance for evil than for violence. If crooked gamboling, thieving and robing are covered over folks will tolerate it longer than out right violence, even when the violence may be cleansing.

Without books we should very likely be a still-primitive people living in the shadow of traditions that faded with years until only a blur remained, and different memories would remember the past in different ways. A parent or a teacher has only his lifetime; a good book can teach forever.Without books we should very likely be a still-primitive people living in the shadow of traditions that faded with years until only a blur remained, and different memories would remember the past in different ways. A parent or a teacher has only his lifetime; a good book can teach forever.

Revenge could steal a man's life until there was nothing left but emptiness.

Much of the study of history is a matter of comparison, of relating what was happening in one area to what was happening elsewhere, and what had happened in the past. To view a period in isolation is to miss whatever message it has to offer.

I like my fellow man, but I also realize he carried a good measure of the Old Nick in him and he can find a good excuse for almost any kind of wrongdoing or mischief.

...the way I figure, no man has the right to be ignorant. In a country like this, ignorance is a crime. If a man is going to vote, if he's going to take part in his country and its government, then it's up to him to understand.

A journey is time suspended.

The key to understanding any people is in its art: its writing, painting, sculpture.

Books are precious things, but more than that, they are the strong backbone of civilization. They are the thread upon which it all hangs, and they can save us when all else is lost.

The Apache don't have a word for love," he said. "Know what they both say at the marriage? The squaw-taking ceremony?""Tell me.""Varlebena. It means forever. That's all they say.

People only talk about how wonderful youth is when they have forgotten how hard it was.

Men strive for peace but it is their enemies that give them strength and I think if man no longer had enemies he would have to invent them for his strength only grows from struggle.