Larry McMurtry Quotes & Sayings

If he didn't like the way she did things, he was free to do them different - but he never did them different. He just fussed at her. — Larry McMurtry

I'm a fastidious bookman and have never liked reading books with library markings or other messy defects. — 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's happiness to see you. — Larry McMurtry

If I'd have wanted civilization I'd have stayed in Tennessee and wrote poetry for a living, — Larry McMurtry

It was only the thought that Deets was still knowing him, somehow, that kept him from feeling totally alone. — Larry McMurtry

You can scare off a lot of cowboys just by looking mean, I guess. — Larry McMurtry

He thought living in a place where there were eagles to watch might encourage some pretty good dreams. — Larry McMurtry

Dern, I hate cooking with shit.
Augustus McCrae to Lorena Wood — Larry McMurtry

He decided not to shoot the tall stranger, mainly because he admired his soft felt hat. — Larry McMurtry

I remember that the single most vicious letter I ever read was the letter Hemingway wrote Scribners when they asked him to give a blurb for From Here to Eternity. It's there, in the Selected Letters for all to read, an example of a once great writer at his very worst. I doubt that he ever forgave Scribners for publishing James Jones in the first place. War, as Hemingway saw it, belonged to him. — Larry McMurtry

Many white men could not trust things unless they could be explained; and yet the most beautiful things, such as the trackless flight of birds, could never be explained. — Larry McMurtry

It feels silly to kiss a smile. At best you just sort of bump teeth. — Larry McMurtry

A man that ain't willin' to cheat for a poke don't want it bad enough. — Larry McMurtry

One of the things that Ang brings to all of his projects is his deep sense of being a double exile, an outsider's outsider. — Larry McMurtry

He said there were going to be literary parties. I tried to imagine a literary party and was unable to. It was a very abstract effort, like trying to imagine a triangle or a cube. Wearing a suit made me feel even more abstract. I had a mental picture of me inside my suit, inside a party, inside a building, inside San Francisco. I didn't know what I was doing, inside so many things that were unlike me. — Larry McMurtry

People got opinions, that's all they've got. — Larry McMurtry

He gathers information that we can't see, and puts it together. — Larry McMurtry

Governors and legislators wanted the hostiles held in check and the bandits hung, but they wanted it all to be done with the fewest possible men on the cheapest possible horses. It irritated Call and infuriated Augustus. — Larry McMurtry

One reason I've hung on to book selling is that it's progressive - the opposite of writing, pretty much. Eventually all novelists, if they persist too long, get worse. No reason to name names, since no one is spared. Writing great fiction involves some combination of energy and imagination that cannot be energized or realized forever. Strong talents can simply exhaust their gift, and they do. — Larry McMurtry

Members of the Academy are mostly urban people. We are an urban nation. We are not a rural nation. It's not easy even to get a rural story made. — Larry McMurtry

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. — Larry McMurtry

Looking at her, though, was like looking at the hills. The hills stayed as they were. You could go them, if you had the means, but they extended no greeting. — Larry McMurtry

Part of him wanted to remember; part of him needed to forget. — Larry McMurtry

How about a kiss?"
"Are you man enough to try?" she asked. — 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 ought to take more chances," I said.
"I took too many earlier," she said. "I'm sorry. — Larry McMurtry

Blue Duck could never avoid a moment of fear, when his father's eyes became the eyes of a snake. He choked off his insult
he knew that if he spoke, he might, in an instant, find himself fighting Buffalo Hump. He had seen it before, with other warriors. Someone would say one word too many, would fail to see the snake in his father's eyes, and the next moment Buffalo Hump would be pulling his long bloody knife from between the other warrior's ribs.
Blue Duck waited. He knew that it was not a day to fight his father. — Larry McMurtry

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

It's a fine world, though rich in hardships at times. — Larry McMurtry

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

During the day he had not trusted enough, and had worn himself out with pointless scurryings. — Larry McMurtry

Once started, love couldn't easily be stopped. — Larry McMurtry

Maude Jones, had killed herself with a shotgun one morning, leaving a note which merely said, 'Can't stand listening to this wind no more. — Larry McMurtry

For a time Dish lost all sense of what life was about. He even lost the sense that he was a cowboy, the strongest sense he had to work with. He was just a fellow with a glass in his hand, whose life had suddenly turned to mud. The day before he had been a top hand, but what did that mean anymore? — Larry McMurtry

it seemed he had to be talking every waking minute as a means of holding his own fears in balance. — Larry McMurtry

Now there was a crack, a kind of canyon, between the Woodrow Call sitting with Teresa on the train and the Woodrow Call who had made the campfire that morning and saddled his horse. The crack was permanent, the canyon deep. He could not get across it, back to himself. His last moments as himself had been spent casually - making a campfire, drinking coffee, saddling a horse. — Larry McMurtry

In the last year or two he had not only grown indifferent to company, he had begun to find it irritating. — Larry McMurtry

But just let me tell you something, son, a woman's love is like the morning dew, it's just as apt to settle on a horse turd as it is on a rose. So you better just get over it. — Larry McMurtry

they might last another year or two, — Larry McMurtry

Deets slapped his leg and laughed, the thought was so funny. When the rest of the outfit finally wondered down from the house they found the two of them grinning back and forth at one another.
"Look at 'em," Augustus said. "You'd think they just discovered teeth. — Larry McMurtry

all vessels leaked to some degree. — Larry McMurtry

CHERFUL IN ALL WEATHERS, NEVER SHERKED A TASK, SPLENDID BEHAVIOUR. — Larry McMurtry

If you wait, all that happens is that you get older. — Larry McMurtry

I don't know why you would even want to stay with me," I said.
T.R. looked stunned for a second and then whipped her elbow into my side as hard as she could
months later it was determined that the jab cracked a rib.
Oh, get fucked!" she said, jumping up. "No wonder you don't have no girlfriend if you don't have no more feelings than to say a horrible thing like that. All I want to do is love you. Ain't you even gonna let me? — Larry McMurtry

She didn't know what to do with the severed leg. She had cut it off, but she didn't want to touch it or even look at it. — Larry McMurtry

It's really quite simple. Mr. Isinglass robbed my father, destroyed my mother, exiled my brothers, and ruined me. If I catch him asleep I'll kill him. I do hope you like this pudding. I had to ride quite a way to find the plums. — Larry McMurtry

If you want one thing too much it's likely to be a disappointment. The healthy way is to learn to like the everyday things, like soft beds and buttermilk - and feisty gentlemen. — Larry McMurtry

People would be bored shitless if they had to love only the good in someone they care about. — Larry McMurtry

I'm glad I've been wrong enough to keep in practice ... You can't avoid it, you've got to learn to handle it. If you only come face to face with your own mistakes once or twice in your life it's bound to be extra painful. I face mine every day
that way they ain't usually much worse than a dry shave. — Larry McMurtry

Sometimes Sonny felt like he was the only human creature in the town. It was a bad feeling, and it usually came on him in the mornings early, when the streets were completely empty, the way they were one Saturday morning in late November. — Larry McMurtry

I don't see how being married could be any worse than listening to you talk for twenty years, but that still ain't much of a recommendation for it. — Larry McMurtry

Billy the Kid shooting all those people over in New Mexico has made gunfighting real popular with the public. — Larry McMurtry

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. — Larry McMurtry

I see you're in a hurry to get someplace. It's a great mistake to hurry." "Why?" Joe asked, puzzled by almost everything the traveler said. "Because the grave's our destination," Mr. Sedgwick said. "Those who hurry usually get to it quicker than those who take their time. — Larry McMurtry

Americans' lack of passion for history is well known. History may not quite be bunk, as Henry Ford suggested, but there's no denying that, as a people, we sustain a passionate concentration on the present and the future. — Larry McMurtry

They say he missed that whore. — Larry McMurtry

You're the only man I know whose brain don't work unless it's in the shade. — Larry McMurtry

In times of crisis human beings don't have it in them to be rational. — Larry McMurtry

Best to help such boys have their moment of fun, before life's torments snatched them. — 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

Texas is rich in unredeemed dreams — Larry McMurtry

People are always turning out to be tougher than I think they are. — Larry McMurtry

I hate rude behavior in a man,' he explained in his quiet, unassuming drawl. 'I won't tolerate it.' He politely tipped his hat, and rode away. — Larry McMurtry

-she remembered them kindly, for there was a sweetness in boys that didn't last long, once they became men. — Larry McMurtry

She wasn't going to succeed in newspapers if she didn't ask the big questions when she could. — Larry McMurtry

Backward is just not a natural direction for Americans to look - historical ignorance remains a national characteristic. — Larry McMurtry

He didn't understand why women had such a need to question. He himself preferred just to let life happen, and act when opportunity arose. — Larry McMurtry

Nothing good ever comes without a price. — Larry McMurtry

Working- and Middle-class families sat down at the dinner table every night - the shared meal was the touchstone of good manners. Indeed, that dinner table was the one time when we were all together, every day: parents, grandparents, children, siblings. Rudeness between siblings, or a failure to observe the etiquette of passing dishes to one another, accompanied by "please" and "thank you," was the training ground of behavior, the place where manners began. — Larry McMurtry

See this page of paper? It's blank," Scull said. "That, sir, is the most frightening battlefield in the world: the blank page. I mean to fill this paper with decent sentences, sir - this page and hundreds like it. Let me tell you, Colonel, it's harder than fighting Lee. Why, it's harder than fighting Napoleon. It requires unremitting attention, — 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

As she was finishing her song, the notes dipped down low - they carried a sadness that was more than a sadness at the death of men; rather it was a sadness at the lives of men, and of women. It reminded those who heard the rising, dipping notes, of notes of hopes that had been born, and, yet, died; of promise, and the failure of promise. — Larry McMurtry

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

Famous Shoes knew the young ranger was scared. Nothing was easier to detect in a man than fear. It showed even in the way he fumbled with his cup while drinking coffee; and it was normal that he would be afraid. He didn't know where he was, — Larry McMurtry

There was said to be measuring of penises at the Orchid, but was it true and if so what did that mean? — Larry McMurtry

Trees had been so common that it was a shock to ride out on the plains and discover that there was a part of earth where there weren't any. — Larry McMurtry

Is the girl all right?" "She's had an ordeal but she's young," Augustus said. "She won't forget it, but she might outlive it. — Larry McMurtry

Several times in his life he had felt an intense desire to start over, to somehow turn back the clock of his life to a point where he might, if he were careful, avoid the many mistakes he had made the first time around. — Larry McMurtry

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

The family got nervous about blood poisoning and persuaded he and Call to saw it off. — Larry McMurtry

by the end of the week, all the cowboys along the river knew that the only sporting woman in Lonesome Dove had abruptly given up the sport. — Larry McMurtry

Yesterday's gone on down the river and you can't get it back. — Larry McMurtry

He might die, but at least he could fight first, and not simply pass his days shaking at the expectation of slaughter. — 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

Young things mainly belong to themselves. How they grow up depends on who gets attached to them. — Larry McMurtry

It was wearying, trying to adjust to all the paces life required. — Larry McMurtry

When Newt walked in the barn to get a rope, the Captain turned and handed him a holstered pistol and a gun belt. "Better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it," he added, a little solemnly. — Larry McMurtry

No medicine man or wise man knew why one man died and another lived. Wise men themselves often died before fools, and cowards before men who were brave. — Larry McMurtry

Well, boys," Long Bill said. "I guess here's where I quit rangering. It's rare sport, but it ain't quite safe. — Larry McMurtry

But the English are different, and they don't know how to be other than different. — Larry McMurtry

Dish said no more, and Augustus decided not to tease him. Occasionally the very youngness of the young moved him to charity- they had no sense of the swiftness of life, nor of its limits. The years would pass like weeks, and loves would pass too, or else grow sour. Young Dish, skilled cowhand that he was, might not live to see the whores of Ogallala, and the tender feelings he harbored for Lorena might be the sweetest he would ever have. — Larry McMurtry

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

I think we spent our best years fighting on the wrong side. — Larry McMurtry

It was a quiet day in Tombstone. — Larry McMurtry

Maude Rainey was built like a barrel, with a bosom as big as buckets and a voice that some claimed would make hair fall out. — Larry McMurtry

In the vastness of the desert, each reduction of the group made them realize how small they were, how puny, in relation to the space they were traveling through. — Larry McMurtry

Mystery is underrated, and understanding is overrated. — Larry McMurtry

The man turned his blue eyes on July for a moment. 'Why, son, I'm fine,' he said. 'You're the one in trouble. I can see you carry a weight on your heart. You're hurrying along to do something you may not want to do. I see by your badge that you're a lawman. But the crimes the law can understand are not the worst crimes. I have often sinned worse than the murderer, and yet I try to live in virtue. — Larry McMurtry

Pea Eye loped up and unfolded himself in the direction of the ground. "Your getting off a horse reminds me of an old crane landing in a mud puddle," Augustus said. — Larry McMurtry