"If you wait, all that happens is that you get older."
— Larry McMurtry

"It ain’t dying I’m talking about, it’s living. I doubt it matters where you die, but it matters where you live.” ~spoken by Augustus McCrae"
— Larry McMurtry (Lonesome Dove)

"Maybe you can make art out of unredeemed pain, but only if you're a genius -- Dostoyevsky perhaps."
— Larry McMurtry

"Only a rank degenerate would drive 1,500 miles across Texas without eating a chicken fried steak."
— Larry McMurtry (In a Narrow Grave : Essays on Texas)

"“If you want one thing too much it’s likely to be a disappointment. The healthy way is to learn to like the everyday things, like soft beds and buttermilk—and feisty gentlemen.”
"
— Larry McMurtry (Lonesome Dove)

"The older the violin, the sweeter the music."
— Larry McMurtry (Lonesome Dove)

"If I had a mind to rent pigs, I'd be mighty upset. A man that likes to rent pigs won't be stopped."
— Larry McMurtry (Lonesome Dove)

""I just got gang-egged, or egg-banged or something."

--Sheriff Toots Burns. "
— Larry McMurtry (Texasville: A Novel)

"The eastern sky was red as coals in a forge, lighting up the flats along the river. Dew had wet the million needles of the chaparral, and when the rim of the sun edged over the horizon the chaparral seemed to be spotted with diamonds. A bush in the backyard was filled with little rainbows as the sun touched the dew.
It was tribute enough to sunup that it could make even chaparral bushes look beautiful, Augustus thought, and he watched the process happily, knowing it would only last a few minutes. The sun spread reddish-gold light through the shining bushes, among which a few goats wandered, bleating. Even when the sun rose above the low bluffs to the south, a layer of light lingered for a bit at the level of the chaparral, as if independent of its source. The the sun lifted clear, like an immense coin. The dew quickly died, and the light that filled the bushes like red dirt dispersed, leaving clear, slightly bluish air.
It was good reading light by then, so Augustus applied himself for a few minutes to the Prophets. He was not overly religious, but he did consider himself a fair prophet and liked to study the styles of his predecessors. They were mostly too long-winded, in his view, and he made no effort to read them verse for verse—he just had a look here and there, while the biscuits were browning."
— Larry McMurtry (Lonesome Dove)

"'I'm sure partial to the evening,' Augustus said. 'The evening and the morning. If we just didn't have to have the rest of the dern day I'd be a lot happier.'"
— Larry McMurtry (Lonesome Dove)

"“Nobody run off with her,” Roscoe said. "She just run off with herself, I guess.""
— Larry McMurtry (Lonesome Dove)

"Though loyal and able and brave, Pea had never displayed the slightest ability to learn from his experience, though his experience was considerable. Time and again he would walk up on the wrong side of a horse that was known to kick, and then look surprised when he got kicked."
— Larry McMurtry (Lonesome Dove)

"’I’m too strong for the normal man and too jealous once my feelings get started.’"
— Larry McMurtry (Lonesome Dove)

"Uva uvum vivendo varia fit"
— Larry McMurtry

"But just let me tell you something, son, a woman's love is like the morning dew, it's just as apt to settle on a horse turd as it is on a rose. So you better just get over it."
— Larry McMurtry (Leaving Cheyenne: A Novel)

"He sat where he was, on Mouse, in the grip of terrible indecision. He almost wished something would happen—a sudden attack of Mexicans or something. He might be killed, but at least he wouldn’t have to make a choice between disobeying Mr. Gus and disobeying Lorena."
— Larry McMurtry (Lonesome Dove)

"Razzy was insulting me silently somehow."
— Larry McMurtry (All My Friends Are Going to Be Strangers : A Novel)

"Dish, too, at the last moment, felt a powerful ache inside him at the thought of leaving the bunch. Though most of the hands were disgraceful, rude and incompetent, they were still his companeros."
— Larry McMurtry (Lonesome Dove)

"Call listened with amusement--not that the incident hadn't been terrible. Being decapitated was a grisly fate, whether you were a Yankee or not. But then, amusing things happened in battle, as they did in the rest of life. Some of the funniest things he had ever witnessed had occurred during battles. He had always found it more satisfying to laugh on a battlefield than anywhere else, for if you lived to laugh on a battlefield, you could feel you had earned the laugh. But if you just laughed in a saloon, or at a social, the laugh didn't reach deep."
— Larry McMurtry (Streets Of Laredo)

"Oh lord, it's Jean-Claude Van Damme, winner of the Tour de France, Rag said, when Duane came in wearing his biking clothes.
Jean-Claude Van Damme is an actor, Duane pointed out. What makes you think he won the Tour de France?
Because he's got those nice strong thighs, like winners have, Rag said. "
— Larry McMurtry (Duane's Depressed : A Novel)