Lonesome Dove Quotes

“If you want one thing too much it’s likely to be a disappointment. The healthy way is to learn to like the everyday things, like soft beds and buttermilk—and feisty gentlemen.”
― Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove

“It ain’t dying I’m talking about, it’s living. I doubt it matters where you die, but it matters where you live.” ~spoken by Augustus McCrae”
― Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove

“Yesterday's gone on down the river and you can't get it back.”
― Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove

“The older the violin, the sweeter the music.”
― Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove

“It's a fine world, though rich in hardships at times.”
― Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove

“I'm glad I've been wrong enough to keep in practice. . . You can't avoid it, you've got to learn to handle it. If you only come face to face with your own mistakes once or twice in your life it's bound to be extra painful. I face mine every day--that way they ain't usually much worse than a dry shave.”
― Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove

“I'm sure partial to the evening,' Augustus said. 'The evening and the morning. If we just didn't have to have the rest of the dern day I'd be a lot happier.”
― Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove

“It's like I told you last night son. The earth is mostly just a boneyard. But pretty in the sunlight, he added”
― Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove

“The hardest thing on earth is choosing what matters”
― Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove

“Live through it," Call said. "That's all we can do.”
― Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove

“He had known several men who blew their heads off, and he had pondered it much. It seemed to him it was probably because they could not take enough happiness just from the sky and the moon to carry them over the low feelings that came to all men.”
― Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove

“I think its a sickness to grieve too much for those who never cared a fig for you.”
― Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove

“If I had a mind to rent pigs, I'd be mighty upset. A man that likes to rent pigs won't be stopped.”
― Larry McMurtry , Lonesome Dove

“Call saw that everyone was looking at him, the hands and cowboys and townspeople alike. The anger had drained out of him, leaving him feeling tired. He didn't remember the fight, particularly, but people were looking at him as if they were stunned. He felt he should make some explanation, though it seemed to him a simple situation.
"I hate a man that talks rude," he said. "I won't tolerate it.”
― Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove

“My main skills are talking and cooking biscuits,' Augustus said. 'And getting drunk on the porch.”
― Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove

“I never met a soul in this world as normal as me.”
― Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove

“From him to the stars, in all directions, there was only silence and emptiness.”
― Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove

“I hate rude behavior in a man,' he explained in his quiet, unassuming drawl. 'I won't tolerate it.' He politely tipped his hat, and rode away.”
― Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove

“At times he felt that he had almost rather not be in love with her, for it brought him no peace. What was the use of it, if it was only going to be painful?”
― Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove

“The eastern sky was red as coals in a forge, lighting up the flats along the river. Dew had wet the million needles of the chaparral, and when the rim of the sun edged over the horizon the chaparral seemed to be spotted with diamonds. A bush in the backyard was filled with little rainbows as the sun touched the dew.
It was tribute enough to sunup that it could make even chaparral bushes look beautiful, Augustus thought, and he watched the process happily, knowing it would only last a few minutes. The sun spread reddish-gold light through the shining bushes, among which a few goats wandered, bleating. Even when the sun rose above the low bluffs to the south, a layer of light lingered for a bit at the level of the chaparral, as if independent of its source. The the sun lifted clear, like an immense coin. The dew quickly died, and the light that filled the bushes like red dirt dispersed, leaving clear, slightly bluish air.
It was good reading light by then, so Augustus applied himself for a few minutes to the Prophets. He was not overly religious, but he did consider himself a fair prophet and liked to study the styles of his predecessors. They were mostly too long-winded, in his view, and he made no effort to read them verse for verse—he just had a look here and there, while the biscuits were browning.”
― Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove

“Anyway, whacking a surly bartender ain't much of a crime.”
― Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove

“Nobody run off with her,” Roscoe said. "She just run off with herself, I guess.”
― Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove

“A man who wouldn't cheat for a poke don't want one bad enough. --Augustus "Gus" McCrae”
― Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove

“The reason men are so awful is because some woman has spoiled them.”
― Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove

“I see you’re in a hurry to get someplace. It’s a great mistake to hurry.” “Why?” Joe asked, puzzled by almost everything the traveler said. “Because the grave’s our destination,” Mr. Sedgwick said. “Those who hurry usually get to it quicker than those who take their time.”
― Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove

“Occasionally the very youngness of the young moved him to charity--they had no sense of the swiftness of life, nor of its limits. The years would pass like weeks, and loves would pass too, or else grow sour.”
― Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove

“I figured out something, Lorie,” he said. “I figured out why you and me get along so well. You know more than you say and I say more than I know. That means we’re a perfect match, as long as we don’t hang around one another more than an hour at a stretch.”
― Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove

“Who asked them dern pigs?” he said. “I guess they tracked us,” Augustus said. “They’re enterprising pigs.”
― Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove

“I don't see how being married could be any worse than listening to you talk for twenty years, but that still ain't much of a recommendation for it.”
― Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove

“All America lies at the end of the wilderness road, and our past is not a dead past, but still lives in us. Our forefathers had civilization inside themselves, the wild outside. We live in the civilization they created, but within us the wilderness still lingers. What they dreamed, we live, and what they lived, we dream. —T. K. Whipple, Study Out the Land”
― Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove