Literature was not promulgated by a pale and emasculated critical priesthood singing their litanies in empty churches - nor is it a game for the cloistered elect, the tinhorn mendicants of low calorie despair. Literature is as old as speech. It grew out of human need for it, and it has not changed except to become more needed. The skalds, the bards, the writers are not separate and exclusive. From the beginning, their functions, their duties, their responsibilities have been decreed by our species. --speech at the Nobel Banquet at the City Hall in Stockholm, December 10, 1962

I’m in love with Montana. For other states I have admiration, respect, recognition, even some affection. But with Montana it is love. And it’s difficult to analyze love when you’re in it.

It's so much darker when a light goes out than it would have been if it had never shone.

I carry a gun cause a cop is too heavy.

There's something desirable about anything you're used to as opposed to something you're not.

You know most people live ninety per cent in the past, seven per cent in the present, and that only leaves them three per cent for the future.

Unless a reviewer has the courage to give you unqualified praise, I say ignore the bastard.