Great readers (are) those who know early that there is never going to be time to read all there is to read, but do their darnedest anyway.
They probably think the sun won’t come up unless you’re there to allow it.
It was something, what must go through men’s mind where women were concerned, to cause them to behave so strangely.
You should marry me”, he said. “I will be good to you. I am not like these men. I have manners. You would see how kind I would be. I would never leave you. You could have an easy life.
He liked to get off by himself, a mile or so from camp, and listen to the country, not the men.
It was something he had always done – moved apart, so he could be alone and think things or a little.
He ought to let the past keep its glow and not try to mix it with what he had in the present.
It’s funny, leaving a place, ain’t it?” he said. “You never do know when you’ll get back.
Of all the women he knew, she had meant the most; and was the one person in his life he felt he had missed, in some ways.
If we know anything about man, it’s that he’s not pacific. The temptation to butcher anyone considered undesirable seems to be a common temptation, not always resisted.
It’s just that it’s fearsome for a man to have a woman start thinking right in front of him. It always leads to trouble.
The crimes the law can understand are not the worst crimes.
She had a beautiful face, a beautiful body, but also a distance in her such as he had never met a woman.
It was a weakness, but he could not bear to disappoint women, even if it was ultimately for their own good.
It seemed to him there was never much time with women. Before you could look at one twice, you were into an argument, and they were telling you what was going to happen.
Could any woman live every day with that level of masculinity?
Me and Call have always liked to get where we started for, even if it don’t make a damn bit of sense.
The years would pass like weeks, and loves would pass too, or else grow sour.
How about a kiss?”“Are you man enough to try?” she asked.
It doesn’t do to sacrifice for people unless they want you to.
A sleeping man would miss the best of the evening, and the moonrise as well.
A man that sleeps all night wastes too much of life.
Getting up early and feeling awake was the one skill he had never truly perfected – he got up, of course, but it never felt natural.
You probably drink too much. If you hand me that bottle, I’ll reduce your temptations. –Augustus “Gus” McCrae
Don’t be trying to give back pain for pain…You can’t get even measures in business like this.
Who asked them dern pigs?” he said. “I guess they tracked us,” Augustus said. “They’re enterprising pigs.
Jake, you’re a dern grasshopper,” Augustus said. “You ride in yesterday talking Montana, and today you’re talking California.
The best to do with a death was to move on from it.
I won’t tolerate vanity in a man, though I will in a woman.
At times he felt that he had almost rather not be in love with her, for it brought him no peace. What was the use of it, if it was only going to be painful?
There seem to be no way he could stop anything that was happening, although it all felt wrong.
Buffalo Hump knew his son was brave, but that was not enough. If a warrior lacked wisdom, courage alone would not keep him alive for long.
Part of the trick of being happy is a refusal to allow oneself to become too nostalgic for the heady triumphs of one’s youth.
But the English are different, and they don’t know how to be other than different.
Little by little, the look of the land changes by the men we admire.
You expect far too much of a first sentence. Think of it as analogous to a good country breakfast: what we want is something simple, but nourishing to the imagination.
No illusion is more crucial than the illusion that great success and huge money buy you immunity from the common ills of mankind, such as cars that won’t start.