Top 250 Larry McMurtry Quotes (2024 Update)
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201. “He loved the way she smelled in the mornings; he liked to sniff at her shoulders or her throat.”

— Larry McMurtry

202. “I don’t know anything about babies,” he said. “No, and you’ve never lived any place but Arkansas,” Clara said. “But you ain’t stupid and you ain’t nailed down. You can live other places and you can learn about children – people dumber than you learn about them.”

— Larry McMurtry

203. “All his work, and it hadn’t saved anyone, or slowed the moment of their going by a minute.”

— Larry McMurtry

204. “I don’t do well with changes in my routine. I read at least three newspapers a day, for example. I’m frustrated if for some reason I can’t get ahold of all three.”

— Larry McMurtry

205. “In the last year or two he had not only grown indifferent to company, he had begun to find it irritating.”

— Larry McMurtry

206. “Now speech had left her; fear took its place.”

— Larry McMurtry

207. “We mostly quarreled. He wanted what I wouldn’t give. I wanted what he didn’t have.”

— Larry McMurtry

208. “The first difference Newt noticed about being grown up was that time didn’t pass as slow.”

— Larry McMurtry

209. “He was annoyed with his mind – it would be a lot easier to do his task well if his mind would just behave and not keep making him scared.”

— Larry McMurtry

210. “He didn’t understand why women had such a need to question. He himself preferred just to let life happen, and act when opportunity arose.”

— Larry McMurtry

211. “They probably think the sun won’t come up unless you’re there to allow it.”

— Larry McMurtry

212. “The crimes the law can understand are not the worst crimes.”

— Larry McMurtry

213. “With both the Indian and the women he was always left with the feeling that, without meaning to, he had made some kind of mistake.”

— Larry McMurtry

214. “The woman had won. In the end, it seemed they always did.”

— Larry McMurtry

215. “If you want to be part of a human community you have to suffer fools – patiently, if not gladly – and you must practice civility as best you can.”

— Larry McMurtry

216. “When he walked out into the lots to catch his horse, he felt grown and complete for the first time in his life.”

— Larry McMurtry

217. “During the day he had not trusted enough, and had worn himself out with pointless scurryings.”

— Larry McMurtry

218. “Certain mountains were that way, like the Bighorns. The air around them was so clear you could ride toward them for days without seeming to get any closer. And yet, if you kept riding, you would get to the mountains. He was not so sure he would ever get to Lorie.”

— Larry McMurtry

219. “It was wearying, trying to adjust to all the paces life required.”

— Larry McMurtry

220. “He had his knife and gun belt on over his underwear, in case of sudden attack.”

— Larry McMurtry

221. “There seem to be no way he could stop anything that was happening, although it all felt wrong.”

— Larry McMurtry

222. “It was as if his whole life had suddenly lodged in his throat, a raw bite he could neither spit out nor swallow.”

— Larry McMurtry

223. “One reason I’ve hung on to book selling is that it’s progressive – the opposite of writing, pretty much. Eventually all novelists, if they persist too long, get worse. No reason to name names, since no one is spared. Writing great fiction involves some combination of energy and imagination that cannot be energized or realized forever. Strong talents can simply exhaust their gift, and they do.”

— Larry McMurtry

224. “I miss Gus... I get to expecting to hear him talk and he ain’t here. My ears sort of get empty.”

— Larry McMurtry

225. “It seemed to him there was never much time with women. Before you could look at one twice, you were into an argument, and they were telling you what was going to happen.”

— Larry McMurtry

226. “It’s a funny life,” Augustus said. “All these cattle and nine-tenths of the horses is stolen, and yet we was once respected lawmen. If we get to Montana we’ll have to go into politics. You’ll wind up governor if the dern place ever gets to be a state. And you’ll spend all your time passing laws against cattle thieves.”

— Larry McMurtry

227. “The sensible way, which he had pursued once or twice in his life, had always proved boring, usually within a few days.”

— Larry McMurtry

228. “Death and worse happened on the plains.”

— Larry McMurtry

229. “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 not want to do. I see by your badge that you’re a lawman. But the crimes the law can understand are not the worst crimes. I have often sinned worse than the murderer, and yet I try to live in virtue.”

— Larry McMurtry

230. “Captain McCrae was wanting to know the answer to questions that had no answer.”

— Larry McMurtry

231. “Backward is just not a natural direction for Americans to look – historical ignorance remains a national characteristic.”

— Larry McMurtry

232. “You’re like a starving person whose stomach is shrunk up from not having any food. You’re shrunk up from not wanting nothing.”

— Larry McMurtry

233. “You told me to stay,” July said. “I know I did, son,” Augustus said. “I’m sure you wish you had. But yesterday’s gone on down the river and you can’t get it back. Go on with your digging and I’ll tidy up.”

— Larry McMurtry

234. “His feet were swollen to twice their size, besides being cut here and there. Yet they were the only feet he had, and after dozing for an hour in the sun, he got up and hobbled on.”

— Larry McMurtry

235. “He himself had once been a man of firm opinion, but now it seemed to him that he knew almost nothing, whereas the words Clara flung at him were hard as rocks.”

— Larry McMurtry

236. “I don’t think you ever wanted to be happy anyway. It don’t suit you, so you managed to avoid it.”

— Larry McMurtry

237. “You don’t get the pint, Woodrow,” Augustus said. “I’ve walked the earth in my pride all these years. If that’s lost, then let the rest be lost with it. There’s certain things my vanity won’t abide.”

— Larry McMurtry

238. “Lubbock, Amarillo, and Wichita Falls are the three principal cities of the Texas plains cities that I find uniformly graceless and unattractive. In summer they are dry and hot, and winter cold, dusty, and windswept; the population is rigidly conformist on the surface and seethes underneath with Imperfectly suppressed malice.”

— Larry McMurtry

239. “It was something, what must go through men’s mind where women were concerned, to cause them to behave so strangely.”

— Larry McMurtry

240. “It seemed to him harder, as he got older, to find a simple way of life.”

— Larry McMurtry

241. “Members of the Academy are mostly urban people. We are an urban nation. We are not a rural nation. It’s not easy even to get a rural story made.”

— Larry McMurtry

242. “Best to help such boys have their moment of fun, before life’s torments snatched them.”

— Larry McMurtry

243. “Governors and legislators wanted the hostiles held in check and the bandits hung, but they wanted it all to be done with the fewest possible men on the cheapest possible horses. It irritated Call and infuriated Augustus.”

— Larry McMurtry

244. “The skinny ones last longer than the fat ones,” Louisa said. “You’ll probably last till you’re about sixty.”

— Larry McMurtry

245. “Without realizing it, he had been wasting time – years and years of time, time that would never be his again. He had failed to take advantage of the diversity of opportunity that had been, all along, available to him.”

— Larry McMurtry

246. “It’s happiness to see you.”

— Larry McMurtry

247. “They sorry,” Deets said. “Saying won’t change it. He’s gone, don’t worry about him. He’s gone to the peaceful place.” He put his hand.”

— Larry McMurtry

248. “His purpose was to get done what needed to be done, and what needed to be done was simple, if not easy.”

— Larry McMurtry

249. “It was a weakness, but he could not bear to disappoint women, even if it was ultimately for their own good.”

— Larry McMurtry

250. “Through my college years, topping that ridge had always given me a great sense of being home, but time had diminished the emotion and I had begun to suspect that home was less a place than an empty page.”

— Larry McMurtry