Source: The Walking Drum (1984), Ch. 25
“A book is less important for what it says than for what it makes you think.”
Source: Education of a Wandering Man
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Louis L'Amour 65
Novelist, short story writer 1908–1988Related quotes

Source: Principle-Centered Leadership (1992), Ch. 11

“The most important thing is to be able to think what you want, not to say what you want.”
"What you can't say" http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html, January 2004

"The Teacher"
Winesburg, Ohio (1919)
Context: "You will have to know life," she declared, and her voice trembled with earnestness. She took hold of George Willard’s shoulders and turned him about so that she could look into his eyes. A passer-by might have thought them about to embrace. "If you are to become a writer you’ll have to stop fooling with words," she explained. "It would be better to give up the notion of writing until you are better prepared. Now it’s time to be living. I don’t want to frighten you, but I would like to make you understand the import of what you think of attempting. You must not become a mere peddler of words. The thing to learn is to know what people are thinking about, not what they say."
“I am less than what you tell about me but more than what you think about me”
Nahj al-Balagha
Context: A man sarcastically started praising Imam Ali, though he had no faith in him and Imam Ali hearing these praises from him said "I am less than what you tell about me but more than what you think about me."

2000s
Context: No matter who you are, engaging in the quest to discover where and how things began tends to induce emotional fervor—as if knowing the beginning bestows upon you some form of fellowship with, or perhaps governance over, all that comes later. So what is true for life itself is no less true for the universe: knowing where you came from is no less important than knowing where you are going.

Luck By Chance - My First Film 29 Oct 2018, at 9 Min 03 Sec https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_B2wChETV5g
From interview with Film Companion

“Say what you have to say, not what you ought. Any truth is better than make-believe.”
“Decide what makes you happy and damn what anyone else thinks or says”
Source: Rush

“What is important is not just what you do - "I am writing a book"”
but how you do it, how you approach it, and what you come to value.
[…] There are many realities. We should remember this when we get too caught in being concerned about the way the rest of the world lives or how we think they live.
Essay, "Every Monday". p.127
Writing Down the Bones (1986)