"One learns to adapt to the land in which one lives."

"It is a poor sort of man who is content to be spoon-fed knowledge that has been filtered through the canon of religious or political belief, and it is a poor sort of man who will permit others to dictate what he may or may not learn."

"He'd had the foresight to know that a lot of the savages wear store-bought clothes."

"Actually, all education is self-education. A teacher is only a guide, to point out the way, and no school, no matter how excellent, can give you education. What you receive is like the outlines in a child's coloring book. You must fill in the colors yourself."

"The idea of education has been so tied to schools, universities, and professors that many assume there is no other way, but education is available to anyone within reach of a library, a post office, or even a newsstand."

"Historical novels are, without question, the best way of teaching history, for they offer the human stories behind the events and leave the reader with a desire to know more."

"A great book begins with an idea; a great life, with a determination."

"Enemies can be an incentive to survive and become someone in spite of them. Enemies can keep you alert and aware."

"No man is a complete ruler or dictator. He is only the mouthpiece for the wishes of his followers. As long as he expresses those wishes, he leads them."

"Violence is an evil thing, but when the guns are all in the hands of the men without respect for human rights, then men are really in trouble."

"The wind was cold off the mountains and I was a naked man with enemies behind me, and nothing before me but hope."

"To exist is to adapt and if one could not adapt one died and made room for those who could."

"Personally, I do not believe the human mind has any limits but those we impose ourselves."

"No memory is ever alone; it's at the end of a trail of memories, a dozen trails that each have their own associations."

"Never can tell when you might come on somebody needs skinning."

"It is brutal. Only I never could see the sense in having folks look at your tombstone and say, 'He was a man who didn't believe in violence, He's a good man... and dead."

"There was a Texas Ranger one time who said that there's no stopping a man who knows he's in the right and keeps a-coming."

"Folks who have lived the cornered sort of life most scholars, teachers, and storekeepers live seldom realize what they've missed in the way of conversation. Some of the best talk and the wisest talk I've ever heard was around campfires, in saloons, bunkhouses, and the like. The idea that all the knowledge of the world is bound up in schools and schoolteachers is a mistaken one."

"He never knew when he was whipped ... so he never was."

"Hate would destroy him who hated."

"To disbelieve is easy; to scoff is simple; to have faith is harder."

"Everyone has it within his power to say this I am today that I shall be tomorrow."

"No one can get an education, for of necessity education is a continuing process."

"Folks can't seem to realize that it isn't a smooth talker we need in there but a steady man, a man with judgement. Any medicine-show man can spout words, if they are written for him. It takes no genius to sound well. To act right and at the right time is something else again."

"Folks who talk about no violence are always the ones who are first to call a policeman and usually they are sure there is one handy."

"All loose things seem to drift down to the sea, and so did I."

"The Apache don't have a word for love," he said. "Know what they both say at the marriage? The squaw-taking ceremony?""Tell me.""Varlebena. It means forever. That's all they say."

"Now, tomorrow Miss Laurie McCrae and me, we have an appointment with a sky pilot who will make it proper for us to travel in double harness."

"It is better to have no emotion when it is work. Do what needs to be done and do it coolly."

"The terms we use for what is considered supernatural are woefully inadequate. Beyond such terms as ghost, specter, poltergeist, angel, devil, or spirit, might there not be something more our purposeful blindness has prevented us from understanding?We accept the fact that there may be other worlds out in space, but might there not be other worlds here? Other worlds, in other dimensions, coexistent with this? If there are other worlds parallel to ours, are all the doors closed? Or does one, here or there, stand ajar?"

"If you want the law to leave you alone, keep your hair trimmed and your boots shined."

"It has seemed to me that each year one should pause to take stock of himself, to ask: Where am I going? What am I becoming? What do I wish to do and become?Most people whom I encountered were without purpose, people who had given themselves no goal. The first goal need not be the final one, for a sailing ship sails first by one wind, then another. The point is that it is always going somewhere, proceeding toward a final destination."

"You would be wise" he agreed, "To go to Cordoba or Toledo. The best of all things is to learn. Money can be lost or stolen, health and strength may fail, but what you have committed to your mind is forever."

"Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on."

"To live in a city, one must be larger than one's environment or enjoy belonging to the crowd."

"Our world is made up of a myriad of microcosms, of tiny worlds, each with its own habitues, every one known to the others."

"My future is one I must make myself."

"Few of us ever live in the present. We are forever anticipating what is to come or remembering what has gone."

"If you're going to be a writer, the first essential is just to write. Do not wait for an idea. Start writing something and the ideas will come. You have to turn the faucet on before the water starts to flow."

"I really learned how to write from Robert Louis Stevenson, Anthony Trollope, and de Maupassant."

"Man needs so little ... yet he begins wanting so much."

"There is no miraculous change that takes place in a boy that makes him a man. He becomes a man by being a man."

"Much of the study of history is a matter of comparison, of relating what was happening in one area to what was happening elsewhere, and what had happened in the past. To view a period in isolation is to miss whatever message it has to offer."

"When a man is one of a kind, he will be lonely wherever he is."

"He might never really do what he said, but at least he had it in mind. He had somewhere to go."

"There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. Yet that will be the beginning."

"People only talk about how wonderful youth is when they have forgotten how hard it was."

"Only one who has learned much can fully appreciate his ignorance."

"People have a greater tolerance for evil than for violence. If crooked gamboling, thieving and robing are covered over folks will tolerate it longer than out right violence, even when the violence may be cleansing."

"A journey is time suspended."