Louis L'Amour

The Apache don't have a word for love," he said.

— Louis L'Amour

To disbelieve is easy; to scoff is simple; to have faith is harder.

— Louis L'Amour

No memory is ever alone; it's at the end of a trail of memories, a dozen trails that each have their own associations.

— Louis L'Amour

Knowledge is like money: to be of value it must circulate, and in circulating it can increase in quantity and, hopefully, in value.

— Louis L'Amour

To disbelieve is easy; to scoff is simple; to have faith is harder.

— Louis L'Amour

I would not sit waiting for some vague tomorrow, nor for something to happen. One could wait a lifetime, and find nothing at the end of the waiting. I would begin here, I would make something happen.

— Louis L'Amour

A good beginning makes a good end.

— Louis L'Amour

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

— Louis L'Amour

Do not let yourself be bothered by the inconsequential. One has only so much time in this world, so devote it to the work and the people most important to you, to those you love and things that matter. One can waste half a lifetime with people one doesn't really like, or doing things when one would be better off somewhere else.

— Louis L'Amour

Characters have a way of taking on a life on their own, expressing themselves in the simple philosophy of their times, and expressing beliefs acquired through living, working, and being. Once characters are established, they become their own persons and the ideas of the characters are such ideas as they might have acquired in the circumstances of their daily existence.

— Louis L'Amour

He had seen Hyle shoot, and he had seen only one man he thought was as good ... just one. He'd seen Con Vallian down in the Bald Knob country that time, and Con was quick. He was almighty quick at a time when a man was either quick or he was dead.

— Louis L'Amour

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.

— Louis L'Amour

Out here you better have a gun, and a gun in the wagon ain't good for nothin'. I believe what the old Quaker said,"Trust in the Lord, but keep your powder dry."

— Louis L'Amour

I would not sit waiting for some vague tomorrow, nor for something to happen. One could wait a lifetime, and find nothing at the end of the waiting. I would begin here, I would make something happen.

— Louis L'Amour

I sat very still, as befitted a small boy among strangers, staring wide-eyed into a world I did not know. I was six years old and my father was dying.\xa0

— Louis L'Amour

A journey is time suspended.

— Louis L'Amour

Many people know how to get money, but few know how to keep it. Wise investments are always based on information, Johannes, so the more you know, the better.

— Louis L'Amour

She looked at me suddenly. “Johannes? What do you wish to be? What would you like to become?” I did not know, and I told her so, but the question worried me. Should I know?\xa0 “There is time,” she said, “but the sooner you know, the sooner you can plan. To have a goal is the important thing, and to work toward it. Then, if you decide you wish to do something different, you will at least have been moving, you have been going somewhere, you will have been learning. "

— Louis L'Amour

What kind of scholar was I? Or was I a scholar at all? My ignorance was enormous. Beside it my knowledge was nothing. My hunger for learning, not so much to improve my lot as to understand my world, had led me to study and to thought. 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

I am merely a seeker after knowledge, taking the world for my province, for it seems all knowledge is interrelated, and each science is dependent to some extent on the others. We study the stars that we may know more about our earth, and herbs that we may know medicine better.

— Louis L'Amour

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

A knife is sharpened on stone, steel is tempered by fire, but men must be sharpened by men.

— Louis L'Amour

It is often said that one has but one life to live, but that is nonsense. For one who reads, there is no limit to the number of lives that may be lived, for fiction, biography, and history offer an inexhaustible number of lives in many parts of the world, in all periods of time.

— Louis L'Amour

My own education, which is the one I know most about, has been haphazard, a hit-and-miss affair that was and continues to be thoroughly delightful. I came into the world with two priceless advantages: good health and a love of learning. When I left school at the age of fifteen I was halfway through the tenth grade. I left for two reasons, economic necessity being the first of them. More important was that school was interfering with my education.

— Louis L'Amour

A mistake constantly made by those who should know better is to judge people of the past by our standards rather than their own. The only way men or women can be judged is against the canvas of their own time.

— Louis L'Amour

Only one who has learned much can fully appreciate his ignorance. He knows well the limits of his knowledge and how much is waiting to be learned.

— Louis L'Amour

Knowledge is like money: to be of value it must circulate, and in circulating it can increase in quantity and, hopefully, in value.

— Louis L'Amour

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

— Louis L'Amour

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

— Louis L'Amour