If there is a magic in story writing, and I am convinced there is, no one has ever been able to reduce it to a recipe that can be passed from one person to another.

I got you to look after me, and you got me to look after you, and that's why.

You can boast about anything if it's all you have. Maybe the less you have, the more you are required to boast.

He had said, "I am a man," and that meant certain things to Juana. It meant that he was half insane and half god. It meant that Kino would drive his strength against a mountain and plunge his strength against the sea. Juana, in her woman's soul, knew that the mountain would stand while the man broke himself; that the sea would surge while the man drowned in it. And yet it was this thing that made him a man, half insane and half god, and Juana had need of a man; she could not live without a man.

If you are in love-that's a good thing-that's about the best thing that can happen to anyone.

When two people meet, each one is changed by the other so you've got two new people.

Guys like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world