Larry McMurtry Quotes

Little by little, the look of the land changes by the men we admire.

But the English are different, and they don’t know how to be other than different.

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.

Larry McMurtry

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.

Larry McMurtry

There seem to be no way he could stop anything that was happening, although it all felt wrong.

Larry McMurtry

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?

Larry McMurtry

The eastern sky was red as coals in a forge, lighting up the flats along the river. Dew had wet the million needles of the chaparral, and when the rim of the sun edged over the horizon the chaparral seemed to be spotted with diamonds. A bush in the backyard was filled with little rainbows as the sun touched the dew.It was tribute enough to sunup that it could make even chaparral bushes look beautiful, Augustus thought, and he watched the process happily, knowing it would only last a few minutes. The sun spread reddish-gold light through the shining bushes, among which a few goats wandered, bleating. Even when the sun rose above the low bluffs to the south, a layer of light lingered for a bit at the level of the chaparral, as if independent of its source. The the sun lifted clear, like an immense coin. The dew quickly died, and the light that filled the bushes like red dirt dispersed, leaving clear, slightly bluish air.It was good reading light by then, so Augustus applied himself for a few minutes to the Prophets. He was not overly religious, but he did consider himself a fair prophet and liked to study the styles of his predecessors. They were mostly too long-winded, in his view, and he made no effort to read them verse for verse—he just had a look here and there, while the biscuits were browning.

Larry McMurtry

I won't tolerate vanity in a man, though I will in a woman.

Larry McMurtry

The best to do with a death was to move on from it.

Larry McMurtry

One day Augustus asked Newt to ride along with him, much to Newt’s surprise. In the morning they saw a grizzly, but the bear was far upwind and didn’t scent them. It was a beautiful day—no clouds in the sky. Augustus rode with his big rifle propped across the saddle—he was in the highest of spirits. They rode ahead of the herd some fifteen miles or more, and yet when they stopped to look back they could still see the cattle, tiny black dots in the middle of the plain, with the southern horizon still far behind them.

Larry McMurtry

Who asked them dern pigs?” he said. “I guess they tracked us,” Augustus said. “They’re enterprising pigs.

Larry McMurtry

Jake, you’re a dern grasshopper,” Augustus said. “You ride in yesterday talking Montana, and today you’re talking California.

Larry McMurtry

WHEN AUGUSTUS CAME OUT on the porch the blue pigs were eating a rattlesnake—not a very big one. It had probably just been crawling around looking for shade when it ran into the pigs. They were having a fine tug-of-war with it, and its rattling days were over.

Larry McMurtry

For most of the hours of the day—and most of the months of the year—the sun had the town trapped deep in dust, far out in the chaparral flats, a heaven for snakes and horned toads, roadrunners and stinging lizards, but a hell for pigs and Tennesseans.

Larry McMurtry

But, if one cuts more deeply, the lonesome dove is Newt, a lonely teenager who is the unacknowledged son of Captain Call and a kindly whore named Maggie, who is now dead. So the central theme of the novel is not the stocking of Montana but unacknowledged paternity. All of the Hat Creek Outfit, including particularly Augustus McCrae, want Call to accept the boy as his son.

Larry McMurtry

He had known several men who blew their heads off, and he had pondered it much. It seemed to him it was probably because they could not take enough happiness just from the sky and the moon to carry them over the low feelings that came to all men.

Larry McMurtry

Don't be trying to give back pain for pain...You can't get even measures in business like this.

Larry McMurtry

You probably drink too much. If you hand me that bottle, I'll reduce your temptations. --Augustus "Gus" McCrae

Larry McMurtry

Once, when I was about ten, we were approaching the ranch after veering north to look at some pasturage when we saw a small barefoot boy racing along the hot road with terror in his face. My father just managed to stop him. Though incoherent with fear, the boy managed to inform us that his little brother had just drowned in the horse trough. My father grabbed the boy and we went racing up to the farmhouse, where the anguished mother, the drowned child in her arms, was sobbing, crying out in German, and rocking in a rocking chair. Fortunately the boy was not quite dead. My father managed to get him away from his mother long enough to stretch him out on the porch and squeeze the water out of him. In a while the boy began to belch dirty fluids and then to breathe again. The crisis past, we went on home. The graceful German mother brought my father jars of her best sauerkraut for many, many years.

Larry McMurtry

A sleeping man would miss the best of the evening, and the moonrise as well.

Larry McMurtry

A man that sleeps all night wastes too much of life.

Larry McMurtry

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.

Larry McMurtry

It doesn't do to sacrifice for people unless they want you to.

Larry McMurtry

How about a kiss?”“Are you man enough to try?” she asked.

Larry McMurtry

Once started, love couldn't easily be stopped.

Larry McMurtry

The years would pass like weeks, and loves would pass too, or else grow sour.

Larry McMurtry

Me and Call have always liked to get where we started for, even if it don't make a damn bit of sense.

Larry McMurtry

It's happiness to see you.

Larry McMurtry

Could any woman live every day with that level of masculinity?

Larry McMurtry

It was a weakness, but he could not bear to disappoint women, even if it was ultimately for their own good.

Larry McMurtry

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.

Larry McMurtry

She had a beautiful face, a beautiful body, but also a distance in her such as he had never met a woman.

Larry McMurtry

The crimes the law can understand are not the worst crimes.

Larry McMurtry

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.

Larry McMurtry

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.

Larry McMurtry

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.

Larry McMurtry

It's funny, leaving a place, ain't it?" he said. "You never do know when you'll get back.

Larry McMurtry

He ought to let the past keep its glow and not try to mix it with what he had in the present.

Larry McMurtry

It was something he had always done - moved apart, so he could be alone and think things or a little.

Larry McMurtry

He liked to get off by himself, a mile or so from camp, and listen to the country, not the men.

Larry McMurtry

She sighed. Men were a pain.

Larry McMurtry

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.

Larry McMurtry

Watching them, Harmony felt too shaken to take a step. Eddie and Sheba were young; but she herself had become old. Even if she wasn’t particularly old if you just counted years, the fact was years were no way to count. Happenings were the way to count, the big happening that separated her from youth or even middle age was the death of her daughter, Pepper. That death made her realize that life, once you got around to producing children, was no longer about being pretty or having boyfriends or making money – it was about protecting children; getting them raised to the point where they could try life as adults. It didn’t have to be just children that come out of your body, either. It could be anyone young who needed something you had to give. Some grown men were children; some grown women, too. Harmony knew that she had spent a good part of her life, taking care of just such men. But now that she felt old she didn’t think she wanted to spend much more of her energy protecting men who had had a good chance to grow up, but had blown it. If she never had another boyfriend – something she had been worrying about, on the plane – it might be a little dull in some areas, like sexual areas, but it wouldn’t be the end of the world. What would be the end of the world would be to let some little girl like Sheba get in the car with a bad man who would make a U-turn across the street and kill her right there in front of the pay phones, where pimps and crack dealers were making their calls.

Larry McMurtry

Though loyal and able and brave, Pea had never displayed the slightest ability to learn from his experience, though his experience was considerable. Time and again he would walk up on the wrong side of a horse that was known to kick, and then look surprised when he got kicked.

Larry McMurtry

It is sometimes the minor, not the major, characters in a novel who hold the author's affection longest. It may be that one loses affection for the major characters because they suck off so much energy as one pushes them through their lives.

Larry McMurtry

It was something, what must go through men's mind where women were concerned, to cause them to behave so strangely.

Larry McMurtry

The thought cross his mind that he ought to have married her and not gone rambling. If he had, he wouldn't be in such a fix. But he felt little fear; just an overpowering fatigue. Life had slipped out of line. It was unfair, it was too bad, but he couldn't find the energy to fight it any longer.

Larry McMurtry

I sing about life. I am happy, but life is sad.

Larry McMurtry

They probably think the sun won't come up unless you're there to allow it.

Larry McMurtry

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.

Larry McMurtry