Louis L'Amour: Timing

“Characters have a way of taking on a life on their own, expressing themselves in the simple philosophy of their times, and expressing beliefs acquired through living, working, and being.”

Louis L'Amour

Preface, in A Trail of Memories : The Quotations Of Louis L'Amour (1988) by Angelique L'Amour
Context: Characters have a way of taking on a life on their own, expressing themselves in the simple philosophy of their times, and expressing beliefs acquired through living, working, and being. Once characters are established, they become their own persons and the ideas of the characters are such ideas as they might have acquired in the circumstances of their daily existence.

Life , Way , Time

“Up to a point a man’s life is shaped by environment, heredity, and movements and changes in the world about him; then there comes a time when it lies within his grasp to shape the clay of his life into the sort of thing he wishes to be.”

Louis L'Amour book The Walking Drum

The Walking Drum (1984)
Context: Up to a point a man’s life is shaped by environment, heredity, and movements and changes in the world about him; then there comes a time when it lies within his grasp to shape the clay of his life into the sort of thing he wishes to be. Only the weak blame parents, their race, their times, lack of good fortune, or the quirks of fate. Everyone has it within his power to say, this I am today, that I shall be tomorrow. The wish, however, must be implemented by deeds.

Ch. 46

Life , World , Change , Time

“Do not let yourself be bothered by the inconsequential. One has only so much time in this world, so devote it to the work and the people most important to you, to those you love and things that matter.”

Louis L'Amour

Ride the River (1983), Ch. 5
Context: Do not let yourself be bothered by the inconsequential. One has only so much time in this world, so devote it to the work and the people most important to you, to those you love and things that matter. One can waste half a lifetime with people one doesn't really like, or doing things when one would be better off somewhere else.

Love , People , World , Time

“He was almighty quick at a time when a man was either quick or he was dead.”

Louis L'Amour

Source: The Quick and the Dead (1973), Ch. 4; L'amour here, and in the title of the work, uses a double entendre, with reference to archaic use of "quick" to mean "living" and a famous idiom regarding the living and the dead which originated in William Tyndale's English translation of the New Testament (1526), 2 Timothy 4:1: "I testifie therfore before god and before the lorde Iesu Christ which shall iudge quicke and deed at his aperynge in his kyngdom."
Context: He had seen Hyle shoot, and he had seen only one man he thought was as good... just one. He'd seen Con Vallian down in the Bald Knob country that time, and Con was quick. He was almighty quick at a time when a man was either quick or he was dead.

Time , Dead

“There will come a time when you believe everything is finished; that will be the beginning.”

Louis L'Amour

Lonely on the Mountain (1980); later quoted in A Trail of Memories : The Quotations Of Louis L'Amour (1988) by Angelique L'Amour

Life , Time

“For one who reads, there is no limit to the number of lives that may be lived, for fiction, biography, and history offer an inexhaustible number of lives in many parts of the world, in all periods of time.”

Louis L'Amour

World , History , Time , Reading

“One day I was speeding along at the typewriter, and my daughter - who was a child at the time - asked me, "Daddy, why are you writing so fast?" And I replied, "Because I want to see how the story turns out!”

Louis L'Amour

Time , Daughters , Speed

“A mistake constantly made by those who should know better is to judge people of the past by our standards rather than their own. The only way men or women can be judged is against the canvas of their own time.”