The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour Quotes

“Another thing Pa taught me: If you’re going to fight … fight. Talk about it after.”
― Louis L'Amour, The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume 1: Frontier Stories

“They were four desperate men, made hard by life, cruel by nature, and driven to desperation by imprisonment.”
― Louis L'Amour, The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume 1: Frontier Stories

“The clouds hung like dark, blowing tapestries in the gaps of the hills.”
― Louis L'Amour, The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume 1: Frontier Stories

“He had fought for a principle, and because it was his nature to fight.”
― Louis L'Amour, The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume 1: Frontier Stories

“Yet Tanneman was a man grown up to danger and trouble, knowing nothing else, and for the first time he was acting with conscious, deliberate purpose.”
― Louis L'Amour, The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume 1: Frontier Stories

“You stick with him, no matter what. It’s all he’ll ever have, what you can give him.”
― Louis L'Amour, The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume 1: Frontier Stories

“Sometimes it’s better to reserve judgment … ”
― Louis L'Amour, The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume 1: Frontier Stories

“Remember that, son. The dogs bark, but the wagons go on their way, and if you’re going someplace you haven’t time to bother with barking dogs.”
― Louis L'Amour, The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume 1: Frontier Stories

“It is neither size nor age that makes a man, Mr. Ryerson, but something he has inside. My son has it.”
― Louis L'Amour, The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume 1: Frontier Stories

“Home is where we’re going now,”
― Louis L'Amour, The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume 1: Frontier Stories

“This was a big country needing big men and women to live in it, and there was no place out here for the frightened or the mean.”
― Louis L'Amour, The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume 1: Frontier Stories

“Folks in the wagon train figured Ma would turn back, but they hadn’t known Ma so long as I had. Once she set her mind to something she wasn’t about to quit.”
― Louis L'Amour, The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume 1: Frontier Stories

“And the two men walked down the street side by side, Ab Kale and his son.…”
― Louis L'Amour, The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume 1: Frontier Stories

“I never saw a man get superior so fast.”
― Louis L'Amour, The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume 1: Frontier Stories

“when a man lives out his life under the sun and the stars, half the time riding alone over mountains and desert, then he usually has a religion although it may not be the usual variety.”
― Louis L'Amour, The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume 1: Frontier Stories

“Women! He thought, who could ever figure them out? No matter what a man said, he was always in the wrong. There was no logic in them.”
― Louis L'Amour, The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume 1: Frontier Stories

“He was still a boy, but there was steel in him. The eyes into which she looked now were cool, but they were eyes strangely mature. “I reckon I’ll stay, ma’am. Down where I come from, we don’t back water for no man.”
― Louis L'Amour, The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume 1: Frontier Stories

“Shut up!” Joe’s tone was ugly. “If you ain’t willing to try, you can go to hell.”
― Louis L'Amour, The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume 1: Frontier Stories

“Quit crabbing,” Bert said mildly. “We’re here now, and we’ve got to like it.”
― Louis L'Amour, The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume 1: Frontier Stories

“The point is,” Frank said, “that we’re here. No use talking about what should have been.”
― Louis L'Amour, The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume 1: Frontier Stories

“We were young then, and the West was young, with the land broad and bright before us. We knew, whatever the truth was, that every horse could be ridden, every man whipped, every girl loved.”
― Louis L'Amour, The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume 1: Frontier Stories

“Thunder rolled like a distant avalanche in the mountain valleys.…”
― Louis L'Amour, The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume 1: Frontier Stories

“What good is a newspaper unless it tells the truth and fights for the rights of the people?”
― Louis L'Amour, The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume 1: Frontier Stories

“The things a man will wish for are harder to leave behind than all his wants, and who, at some time in his life, does not dream of gathering into his arms and carrying away the girl he loves?”
― Louis L'Amour, The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume 1: Frontier Stories

“At twenty-four the smile of a woman is a glory to the blood and a spark to the spirit, and carries a richer wine than any sold over a bar in any frontier saloon.”
― Louis L'Amour, The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume 1: Frontier Stories

“No rider of the desert must see a man to know him, for it is enough to follow his trail. In these things are the ways of a man made plain, his kindness or cruelty, his ignorance or cunning, his strength and his weakness.”
― Louis L'Amour, The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume 1: Frontier Stories

“Who can say that the desert does not live? Or that the dark, serrated ridges conceal no spirit? Who can love the lost places, yet believe himself truly alone in the silent hills? How can we be sure the ancient ones were wrong when they believed each rock, each tree, each stream or mountain possessed an active spirit?”
― Louis L'Amour, The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume 1: Frontier Stories

“They were men shaped and tempered to the harsh ways of a harsh land, strong in their sense of justice, ruthless in their demand for punishment, relentless in pursuit. From the desert they had carved their homes, and from the desert they drew their courage and their code, and the desert knows no mercy.”
― Louis L'Amour, The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume 1: Frontier Stories

“stronger? Will it be next week? Will it be next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed and a guard stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Sir, we are not weak if we make proper use of those means which the God of nature has placed in our power.”
― Louis L'Amour, The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume 1: Frontier Stories

“no argument of his could hope to dam the flow of words that poured over the spillway of Price Macomber’s lips.”
― Louis L'Amour, The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume 1: Frontier Stories