Riders of the Purple Sage Quotes

“Where I was raised a woman's word was law. I ain't quite outgrowed that yet.”
― Zane Grey, Riders of the Purple Sage

“So that's troublin' you? I reckon it needn't. You see it was this way. I come round the house an' seen that fat party an' heard him talkin' loud. Then he seen me, an' very impolite goes straight for his gun. He oughtn't have tried to throw a gun on me - whatever his reason was. For that's meetin' me on my own grounds. I've seen runnin' molasses that was quicker'n him. Now I didn't know who he was, visitor or friend or relation of yours, though I seen he was a Mormon all over, an' I couldn't get serious about shootin'. So I winged him - put a bullet through his arm as he was pullin' at his gun. An' he droppped the gun there, an' a little blood. I told him he'd introduced himself sufficient, an' to please move out of my vicinity. An' went" - Lassiter”
― Zane Grey, Riders of the Purple Sage

“Her forefathers had been Vikings, savage chieftains who bore no cross and brooked no hindrance to their will.”
― Zane Grey, Riders of the Purple Sage: Filibooks Classics

“Love of man for woman - love of woman for man. That's the nature, the meaning, the best of life itself.”
― Zane Grey, Riders of the Purple Sage

“I am waiting to plunge down, to shatter and crash, roar and boom, to bury your trail, and close forever the outlet to Deception Pass!”
― Zane Grey, Riders of the Purple Sage

“You dream… or you’re driven mad.”
― Zane Grey, Riders of the Purple Sage

“The blindness I mean is blindness that keeps you from seein' the truth.”
― Zane Grey, Riders of the Purple Sage

“When I rode—I rode like the wind," she replied, "and never had time to stop for anything.”
― Zane Grey, Riders of the Purple Sage

“And as he lost that softness of nature, so he lost his fear of men. He would watch for Oldring, biding his time, and he would kill this great black-bearded rustler who had held a girl in bondage, who had used her to his infamous ends.”
― Zane Grey, Riders of the Purple Sage

“He cursed Tull. I never hear a man get such a cursin'. He laughed in scorn at the idea of Tull bein' a minister. He said Tull an' a few more dogs of hell builded their empire out of the hearts of such innocent an' God-fearin' women as Jane Withersteen. He called Tull a binder of women, a callous beast who hid behind a mock mantle of righteousness—an' the last an' lowest coward on the face of the earth. To prey on weak women through their religion—that was the last unspeakable crime!”
― Zane Grey, Riders of the Purple Sage

“Lassiter, I'll ride away with you. Hide me till danger is past—till we are forgotten—then take me where you will. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God!”
― Zane Grey, Riders of the Purple Sage

“Nat'rully I looked back to see what hed acted so powerful strange on the judge. An' there, half-way up the room, in the middle of the wide aisle, stood Lassiter! All white an' black he looked, an' I can't think of anythin' he resembled, onless it's death.”
― Zane Grey, Riders of the Purple Sage

“While she waited there she forgot the prospect of untoward change. The bray of a lazy burro broke the afternoon quiet, and it was comfortingly suggestive of the drowsy farmyard, and the open corrals, and the green alfalfa fields. Her clear sight intensified the purple sage-slope as it rolled before her. Low swells of prairie-like ground sloped up to the west. Dark, lonely cedar trees, few and far between, stood out strikingly, and at long distances ruins of red rocks. Farther on, up the gradual slope, rose a broken wall, a huge monument, looming dark purple and stretching its solitary, mystic way, a wavering line that faded in the north. Here to the westward was the light and color and beauty. Northward the slope descended to a dim line of canyons from which rose an up-flinging of the earth, not mountainous, but a vast heave of purple uplands, with ribbed and fan-shaped walls, castle-crowned cliffs, and gray escarpments. Over it all crept the lengthening, waning afternoon shadows.”
― Zane Grey, Riders of the Purple Sage

“Yes. Love of man for woman—love of woman for man. That’s the nature, the meaning, the best of life itself.”
― Zane Grey, Riders of the Purple Sage

“the long-deferred breaking of the storm with a courage and embittered calm that had come to her in her extremity. Hope had not died. Doubt and fear, subservient to her will, no longer gave her sleepless nights and tortured days. Love remained. All that she had loved she now loved the more. She seemed to feel that she was defiantly flinging the wealth of her love in the face of misfortune and of hate. No day passed but she prayed for all—and most fervently for her enemies. It troubled her that she had lost, or had never gained, the whole control of her mind. In some measure reason and wisdom and decision were locked in a chamber of her brain, awaiting a key. Power to think of some things was taken from her. Meanwhile, abiding a day of judgment, she fought ceaselessly to deny the bitter drops in her cup, to tear back the slow, the intangibly slow growth of a hot, corrosive lichen eating into her heart.”
― Zane Grey, Riders of the Purple Sage

“I must tell you—because you mightn't come back," she whispered. "You must know what—what I think of your goodness—of you. Always I've been tongue-tied. I seemed not to be grateful. It was deep in my heart. Even now—if I were other than I am—I couldn't tell you. But I'm nothing—only a rustler's girl—nameless—infamous. You've saved me—”
― Zane Grey, Riders of the Purple Sage

“That you should save me—be so good and kind—want to make me happy—why, it's beyond belief. No wonder I'm wretched at the thought of your leaving me. But I'll be wretched and bitter no more. I promise you.”
― Zane Grey, Riders of the Purple Sage

“And you must forget what you are—were—I mean, and be happy. When you remember that old life you are bitter, and it hurts me.”
― Zane Grey, Riders of the Purple Sage

“Give me four days. If I'm not back in four days you'll know I'm dead. For that only shall keep me." "Oh!" "Bess, I'll come back. There's danger—I wouldn't lie to you—but I can take care of myself.”
― Zane Grey, Riders of the Purple Sage

“She's mine. I'll fight to keep her safe from that old life. I've already seen her forget it. I love her. And if a beast ever rises in me I'll burn my hand off before I lay it on her with shameful intent. And, by God! sooner or later I'll kill the man who hid her and kept her in Deception Pass!”
― Zane Grey, Riders of the Purple Sage

“He saw the dark, slender, graceful outline of her form. A woman lay in his arms! And he held her closer. He who had been alone in the sad, silent watches of the night was not now and never must be again alone. He who had yearned for the touch of a hand felt the long tremble and the heart-beat of a woman.”
― Zane Grey, Riders of the Purple Sage

“Every day I awake believing—still believing. The day grows, and with it doubts, fears, and that black bat hate that bites hotter and hotter into my heart. Then comes night—”
― Zane Grey, Riders of the Purple Sage

“Some of these wall-eyed fellers who look jest as if they was walkin' in the shadow of Christ himself, right down the sunny road, now they can think of things en' do things that are really hell-bent.”
― Zane Grey, Riders of the Purple Sage

“Jane smothered the glow and burn within her, ashamed of a passion for freedom that opposed her duty.”
― Zane Grey, Riders of the Purple Sage

“Good and evil began to seem incomprehensibly blended in her judgment. It was her belief that evil could not come forth from good; yet here was a murderer who dwarfed in gentleness, patience, and love any man she had ever known.”
― Zane Grey, Riders of the Purple Sage

“Bern, it's divine to forgive your enemies. 'Let not the sun go down upon thy wrath.”
― Zane Grey, Riders of the Purple Sage

“What an awful trail! Did you carry me up here?" "I did, surely," replied he.”
― Zane Grey, Riders of the Purple Sage: Filibooks Classics

“A sharp clip-crop of iron-shod hoofs deadened and died away, and clouds of yellow dust drifted from under the cottonwoods out over the sage.”
― Zane Grey, Riders of the Purple Sage: Filibooks Classics

“I've seen runnin' molasses that was quicker 'n him.”
― Zane Grey, Riders of the Purple Sage: By Zane Grey - Illustrated