Anger is a killing thing: it kills the man who angers, for each rage leaves him less than he had been before - it takes something from him.

A good beginning makes a good end.

I had begun reading earlier than most because my sister Emmy Lou, no doubt to keep me from bothering her, decided it was easier to teach me to read stories to myself rather than to read them to me, as she had been doing.

Being scared can keep a man from getting killed, and often makes a better fighter of him

I'm actually writing history. It isn't what you'd call big history. I don't write about presidents and generals... I write about the man who was ranching, the man who was mining, the man who was opening up the country.

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