Wister Quotes & Sayings

Forgive my asking you to use your mind. It is a thing which no novelist should expect of his reader ... — Owen Wister

Said Aristotle unto Plato, 'Have another sweet potato?' Said Plato unto Aristotle, 'Thank you, I prefer the bottle.' — Owen Wister

Like Adam, our first conspicuous ancestor, I must begin, and lay the blame upon a woman; I am glad to recognize that I differ from the father of my sex in no important particular, being as manlike as most of his sons. — Owen Wister

You call my candidate a horse thief, and I call yours a lunatic, and we both of us know it's just till election day. It's an American custom, like eating corn on the cob. And, afterwards, we settle down quite peaceably and agree we've got a pretty good country - until next election. — Stephen Vincent Benet

When you can't have what you choose, you just choose what you have. — Owen Wister

When a man ain't got no ideas of his own, he'd ought to be kind o' careful who he borrows 'em from. — Owen Wister

Working with Moschino, a real high fashion Italian brand, maybe I'm under tighter deadlines, but sometimes under tight deadlines you do your best work. — Jeremy Scott

The concept of the public welfare is broad and inclusive ... the values it represents are spiritual as well as physical, aesthetic as well as monetary. It is within the power of the legislature to determine that the community should be beautiful as well as healthy, spacious as well as clean, well balanced as well as carefully patroled. — William O. Douglas

But no earthly foot can step between a man and his destiny. — Owen Wister

When yu' can't have what you choose, yu' just choose what you have. — Owen Wister

Cricket was a manly game. Manly masters spoke of the 'discipline of the hard ball'. Schools preferred manly games. Games were only manly if it was possible while playing them to be killed or drowned or at the very least badly maimed. Cricket could be splendidly dangerous. Tennis was not manly, and if a boy had asked permission to spend the afternoon playing croquet he would have been instantly punished for his 'general attitude'. Athletics were admitted into the charmed lethal circle as a boy could, with a little ingenuity, get impaled during the pole-vault or be decapitated by a discus and did a manly death. Fives were thought to be rather tame until one boy ran his head into a stone buttress and got concussion and another fainted dead away from heat and fatigue. Then everybody cheered up about fives. — Arthur Marshall

I thought there should in truth be heavy damages for malpractice on human souls. — Owen Wister

With a gun against my belly I ... I always smile. — Owen Wister

People adopt ideas when social, personal and financial trends intersect-a confluence that may seem random but usually happens 'by design. — Clement Mok

You are speakin' low like me," he answered. "But we have no dream we can wake from — Owen Wister

True courage consists in being courageous precisely when when we're not. — Jules Renard

While men's rights are guaranteed by specific language in the Constitution, women's equal rights aren't mentioned. — Carolyn Maloney

An aristocrat in morals as in mind. — Owen Wister

I have spent most of my life trying to figure out what goes on inside your mind," he said. "First I thought you were slow and then I thought you might be red. Finally it occurred to me that you are just a sentimentalist. You believe in the open range, the code, the nobility of the sufferin' cowpoke and the emptiness of bankers' hearts - all stuff you picked up from Zane Grey . . ." In fact I have not read Zane Grey, though I do not mind Wister, but explaining these distinctions to my brother is pointless. — Philipp Meyer

Take time to enjoy the flight - read a good book, watch a film, catch up on emails and sleep. — Orlando Bloom

In the 1880s, a weedy Easterner named Owen Wister had something like a nervous breakdown. Wyoming, with its wide-open spaces and healthy pursuits, was prescribed as a cure. Wister was immediately smitten by the taciturn cowboys and the rules imposed upon them by the cattle barons. — Clive Sinclair

Choose Love

My mother once said to me there are two kinds of men you'll meet. The first will give you the life you want and the second will give you the love you desire. If you're one of the lucky few, you will find both in the one person. But if you ever find yourself having to choose between the two, then always choose love. — Lang Leav

It may be that them whose pleasure brings you into this world owes you a living, but it don't mean the world is responsible. — Owen Wister

In the United States 'First' and 'Second' class can't be painted on railroad cars, for all passengers, being Americans, are equal and it would be 'unAmerican.' But paint 'Pullman' on a car and everyone is satisfied. — Owen Wister

I reckon some parsons have a right to tell yu' to be good. The bishop of this hyeh Territory has a right. But I'll tell yu' this: a middlin' doctor is a pore thing, and a middlin' lawyer is a pore thing; but keep me from a middlin' man of God. — Owen Wister

It was neither preaching nor praying that made a better man of me, but one or two people who believed in me better than I deserved, and I hated to disappoint them. — Owen Wister