When Kino had finished, Juana came back to the fire and ate her breakfast. They had spoken once, but there is not need for speech if it is only a habit anyway. Kino sighed with satisfaction – and that was conversation.
It would be good to live in a perpetual state of leave-taking, never to go nor to stay, but to remain suspended in that golden emotion of love and longing; to be loved without satiety.
One of the laws of paleontology is that an animal which must protect itself with thick armour is degenerate. It is usually a sign that the species is on the road to extinction.
Intention, good or bad, is not enough.
There is no lostness like that which comes to a man when a perfect and certain pattern has dissolved about him.
Hate cannot live alone. It must have love as a trigger, a goad, or a stimulant.
If a story is not about the hearer, he will not listen. And here I make a rule – a great and interesting story is about everyone or it will not last.
He can kill anything for need but he could not even hurt a feeling for pleasure.
But you can’t start over Only a boy can start over You and me Why, we’re all that’s been.
It was a day as different from other days as dogs are from cats and both of them from chrysanthemums or tidal waves or scarlet fever.
There are two kinds of people in the world, observers and non-observers...
And this you can know- fear the time when Manself will not suffer and die for a concept, for this one quality is man, distinctive in the universe.
If you’re in trouble, or hurt or need – go to the poor people. They’re the only ones that’ll help – the only ones.
For it is my opinion that we enclose and celebrate the freaks of our nation and our civilization. Yellowstone National Park is no more representative of America than is Disneyland.
It would be absurd if we did not understand both angels and devils, since we invented them.
He saw something that makes a man doubtful of the constancy of the realities outside himself. It was the shocking discovery that makes a man wonder if I’ve missed this, what else have I failed to see?
So many old and lovely things are stored in the world’s attic because we don’t want them around us and we don’t dare throw them out.
He never fell, never slipped back, never flew.
Only through immitation do we develop toward originality.
These too are of a burning color – not orange, not gold, but if pure gold were liquid and could raise a cream, that golden cream might be like the color of the poppies.