Hope was always out ahead of fact, possibility obscured the outlines of reality. Wallace Stegner More Quotes by Wallace Stegner More Quotes From Wallace Stegner The meeting of writer and reader is an intimate act, and it properly takes place in private. Wallace Stegner intimate meetings reader Any life will provide the material for writing, if it is attended to. Wallace Stegner materials ifs writing Every book that anyone sets out on is a voyage of discovery that may discover nothing. Any voyager may be lost at sea, like John Cabot. Nobody can teach the geography of the undiscovered. All he can do is encourge the will to explore, plus impress upon the inexperienced a few of the dos and don'ts of voyaging. Wallace Stegner teaching discovery book No place is a place until it has found its poet. Wallace Stegner poet found Are you a reader? If you aren't a reader, you might as well forget trying to be a writer. Wallace Stegner forget trying might This early piece of the morning is mine. Wallace Stegner mines pieces morning Every time. You know why? I want to fail. I work like a dog for twenty years so I'll have the supreme pleasure of failing. Never knew anybody like that, did you? I'm very cunning. I plan it in advance. I fool myself right up to the last minute, and then the time comes and I know how cunningly I've been planning it all the time. I've been a failure all my life. Wallace Stegner dog want years To try to save for everyone, for the hostile and independent as well as the committed, some of the health that flows down across the green ridges from the skyline, and some of the beauty and spirit that are still available to any resident of the valley who has a moment and the wit to lift up his eyes unto the hills. Wallace Stegner independent eye trying Death is a convention, a certification to the end of pain, something for the vital statistics book, not binding upon anyone but the keepers of graveyard records. Wallace Stegner pain death book No place is a place until things that have happened in it are remembered in history, ballads, yarns, legends, or monuments. Fictions serve as well as facts. Wallace Stegner yarn legends fiction Expose a child to a particular environment at this susceptible time and he will perceive in the shapes of that environment until he dies. Wallace Stegner education motivational inspirational A writer is an organism that will go on writing even after its heart has been cut out. Wallace Stegner cutting heart writing We are fossils in the making. Wallace Stegner fossils We made plenty of mistakes, but we never tripped anybody to gain an advantage, or took illegal shortcuts when no judge was around. We have all jogged and panted it out the whole way. Wallace Stegner judging mistake way I imagine you will always be pinched for money, for time, for a place to work. But I think you will do it. And believe me, it is not a new problem. You are in good company...Your touch is the uncommon touch; you will speak only to the thoughtful reader. And more times than once you will ask yourself whether such readers really exist at all and why you should go on projecting your words into silence like an old crazy actor playing the part of himself to an empty theater. Wallace Stegner thoughtful crazy believe Do we respond only to people who seem to find us interesting? Wallace Stegner seems people interesting A political animal can be defined as a body that will go on circulating a petition even with its heart cut out. Wallace Stegner cutting heart animal The flimsy little protestations that mark the front gate of every novel, the solemn statements that any resemblance to real persons living or dead is entirely coincidental, are fraudulent every time. A writer has no other material to make his people from than the people of his experience ... The only thing the writer can do is to recombine parts, suppress some characterisitics and emphasize others, put two or three people into one fictional character, and pray the real-life prototypes won't sue. Wallace Stegner real character two Pleasant things to hear, though hearing them from him embarrasses me. I soak up the praise but feel obliged to disparage the gift. I believe that most people have some degree of talent for something--forms, colors, words, sounds. Talent lies around in us like kindling waiting for a match, but some people, just as gifted as others, are less lucky. Fate never drops a match on them. The times are wrong, or their health is poor, or their energy low, or their obligations too many. Something. Wallace Stegner fate believe lying If you avoid the killer diseases and keep the degenerative ones under control with sensible diet and exercise and whatever chemotherapy you need to stay in balance, you can live nearly forever. Wallace Stegner balance exercise forever
