Wallace Stegner

Wallace Stegner
Wallace Earle Stegnerwas an American novelist, short story writer, environmentalist, and historian, often called "The Dean of Western Writers". He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1972 and the U.S. National Book Award in 1977...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionHistorian
Date of Birth18 February 1909
CountryUnited States of America
responsibility sisterhood people
But however you might rebel, there was no shedding them. They were your responsibility and there was no one to relieve you of them. They called you Sis. All your life people called you Sis, because that was what you were, or what you became - big sister, helpful sister, the one upon whom everyone depended, the one they all came to for everything from help with homework to a sliver under the fingernail.
humble responsibility men
I am terribly glad to be alive; and when I have wit enough to think about it, terribly proud to be a man and an American, with all the rights and privileges that those words connote; and most of all I am humble before the responsibilities that are also mine. For no right comes without a responsibility, and being born luckier than most of the world's millions, I am also born more obligated.
among bird boasting drinking fellow fighting found sit whom
It is something-it can be everything-to have found a fellow bird with whom you can sit among the rafters while the drinking and boasting and reciting and fighting go on below.
dream memories eye
Floating upward through a confusion of dreams and memory, curving like a trout through the rings of previous risings, I surface. My eyes open. I am awake.
character people towns
Towns are like people. Old ones often have character, the new ones are interchangeable.
mean world chance
One means of sanity is to retain a hold on the natural world, ... Americans still have that chance, more than many peoples.
rugged-individualism chance scenery
Have a chance to create a society to match its scenery.
summer past rose
Salt is added to dried rose petals with the perfume and spices, when we store them away in covered jars, the summers of our past.
drinking fighting bird
It is somethingit can be everything-to have found a fellow bird with whom you can sit among the rafters while the drinking and boasting and reciting and fighting go on below.
book weekend two
A western buckaroo, I share his scorn for people who go camping by the book, relying on the authority of some half-assed assistant scoutmaster whose total experience outdoors probably consists of two overnight hikes and a weekend in the Catskills. But we have just had that confrontation. The one who goes by Pritchard's book is Sid's wife, and I am wary. It is not my expedition. I am a guest here.
summer halloween night
The perfect weather of Indian Summer lengthened and lingered, warm sunny days were followed by brisk nights with Halloween a presentiment in the air.
moving mountain desert
Faith can reclaim deserts as well as move mountains.
fossils
We are fossils in the making.
reality facts possibility
Hope was always out ahead of fact, possibility obscured the outlines of reality.