Grub Street turns out good things almost as often as Parnassus. For if a writer is hard up enough, if heโs far down enough (down where I have been and am rising from, I am really saying), he canโt afford self-doubt and he canโt let other peopleโs opinions, even a fatherโs, keep him from writing.
Wallace StegnerBe proud of every scar on your heart, each one holds a lifetimeโs worth of lessons.
Wallace StegnerI imagine you will always be pinched for money, for time, for a place to work. But I think you will do it. And believe me, it is not a new problem. You are in good company...Your touch is the uncommon touch; you will speak only to the thoughtful reader. And more times than once you will ask yourself whether such readers really exist at all and why you should go on projecting your words into silence like an old crazy actor playing the part of himself to an empty theater.
Wallace StegnerWhat is such a resource worth? Anything it costs. If we never hike it or step into its shade, if we only drive by occasionally and see the textures of green mountainside change under wind and sun, or the fog move soft feathers down the gulches, or the last sunset on the continent redden the sky beyond the ridge, we have our money's worth. We have been too efficient at destruction; we have left our souls too little space to breathe in. Every green natural place we save saves a fragment of our sanity and gives us a little more hope that we have a future.
Wallace StegnerOne cannot be pessimistic about the West. This is the native home of hope. When it fully learns that cooperation, not rugged individualism, is the quality that most characterizes and preserves it, then it will have achieved itself and outlived its origins. Then it has a chance to create a society to match its scenery.
Wallace Stegner