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 StegnerEvery book that anyone sets out on is a voyage of discovery that may discover nothing. Any voyager may be lost at sea, like John Cabot. Nobody can teach the geography of the undiscovered. All he can do is encourge the will to explore, plus impress upon the inexperienced a few of the dos and don'ts of voyaging.
Wallace StegnerI gave my heart to the mountains the minute I stood beside this river with its spray in my face and watched it thunder into foam, smooth to green glass over sunken rocks, shatter to foam again. I was fascinated by how it sped by and yet was always there; its roar shook both the earth and me.
Wallace Stegner