Anyway, whacking a surly bartender ain't much of a crime.
That evening: she was going to a country club dance with Lester Marlow. She wasn’t sheddin’ no tears over the telephone, Duane said bitterly. She may be getting to like country club dances, that’s wha...
You’re like a starving person whose stomach is shrunk up from not having any food. You’re shrunk up from not wanting nothing.
Why would you want to keep in practice being wrong? Call asked. I’d think it would be something you’d try to avoid. You can’t avoid it, you’ve got to learn to handle it, Augustus said. If you only com...
Watching them, Harmony felt too shaken to take a step. Eddie and Sheba were young; but she herself had become old. Even if she wasn’t particularly old if you just counted years, the fact was years wer...
The reason men are so awful is because some woman has spoiled them.
The reason I'm so crazy is because nobody cares anything about me. I don't guess there's anybody I care much about, either. It's my own fault, though - I haven't had the guts to try and do anything ab...
The other men were easy to talk to, but they didn’t know anything. If one stopped to think about it, it was depressing how little most men learned in their lifetimes.
The man turned his blue eyes on July for a moment. 'Why, son, I'm fine,' he said. 'You're the one in trouble. I can see you carry a weight on your heart. You're hurrying along to do something you may...
One day Augustus asked Newt to ride along with him, much to Newt’s surprise. In the morning they saw a grizzly, but the bear was far upwind and didn’t scent them. It was a beautiful day—no clouds in t...
Most young dealers of the Silicon Chip Era regard a reference library as merely a waste of space. Old Timers on the West Coast seem to retain a fondness for reference books that goes beyond the practi...
Jake, you’re a dern grasshopper, Augustus said. You ride in yesterday talking Montana, and today you’re talking California.
It’s my fault for not shooting the son of a bitch while he was drinking. I didn’t know who he was at the time, but I should have shot him on suspicion. And then I plumb forgot about it all day. I’m ge...
It's a fine world, though rich in hardships at times.
Incompetents invariably made trouble for people other than themselves.
In the vastness of the desert, each reduction of the group made them realize how small they were, how puny, in relation to the space they were traveling through.
If I had a mind to rent pigs, I'd be mighty upset. A man that likes to rent pigs won't be stopped.
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.
I'll pass on snow myself, when I have the option.
I wish you'd stop talking about your own death, Gus said, in a joking tone. It ain't genteel.