Top 50 Wilson Rawls Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “There is a little good in all evil.”

— Wilson Rawls

2. “Internet friends are real friends.”

— Wilson Rawls

3. “With a heavy heart, I turned and walked away. I knew that as long as I lived I’d never forget the two little graves and the sacred red fern.”

— Wilson Rawls

4. “You were worth it, old friend, and a thousand times over.”

— Wilson Rawls

5. “I buried Little Ann by the side of Old Dan. I knew that was where she wanted to be. I also buried a part of my life along with my dog.”

— Wilson Rawls

6. “Everyone suffers, even the good Lord suffered when he was on Earth.”

— Wilson Rawls

7. “Give up!” Grandpa barked. “Now I don’t want to hear you say that. No, sir, that’s the last thing I want to hear. Don’t ever start anything you can’t finish.”

— Wilson Rawls

8. “Yes, I know it is still there, for in my heart I believe the legend of the sacred red fern.”

— Wilson Rawls

9. “I believe a boy can have anything in life that he wants once he starts working for it. The main thing is not to give up. It makes no difference how tough things get, just bow your back, keep working, and put you heart and soul into it. As you go along your way, live a good clean life, don’t hurt anyone or anything, and always be honest. It doesn’t hurt to pray a little too.”

— Wilson Rawls

10. “If a man’s word isn’t any good, he’s no good himself.”

— Wilson Rawls

11. “On my way home I didn’t walk on the ground. I was way up in the clouds just skipping along.”

— Wilson Rawls

12. “HAD no idea what was in store for me. To begin with, everything was too perfect.”

— Wilson Rawls

13. “My heart started acting like a drunk grasshopper.”

— Wilson Rawls

14. “I looked at his grave and, with tears in my eyes, I voiced these words: “You were worth it, old friend, and a thousand times over.”

— Wilson Rawls

15. “Piece by piece, each fit perfectly until the puzzle was complete. It could not have happened without the help of an unseen power.”

— Wilson Rawls

16. “Old Dan must have known he was dying. Just before he drew his last breath, he opened his eyes and looked at me. Then with one last sigh, and a feeble thump of his tail, his friendly gray eyes closed forever.”

— Wilson Rawls

17. “Where the Red Fern Grows taps into the wellspring that runs deep in all of us as we fall in step with a boy and his dogs and, piece by piece, our own stories unfold.”

— Wilson Rawls

18. “Looking to the mountains around us, I saw that the mysterious artist who comes at night had paid us a visit. I wondered how he could paint so many different colors in one night; red, wine, yellow, and rust.”

— Wilson Rawls

19. “On hearing this remark, my heart jumped clear up in my throat... I thought surely it was going to hop right out on the depot platform. I looked up and tried to tell him who I was, but something went wrong. When the words finally came out they sounded like the squeaky old pulley on our well when Mama drew up a bucket of water.”

— Wilson Rawls

20. “I’d like to take a walk far back in the flinty hills and search for a souvenir, an old double-bitted ax stuck deep in the side of a white oak tree. I know the handle has long since rotted away with time. Perhaps the rusty frame of a coal-oil lantern still hangs there on the blade.”

— Wilson Rawls

21. “It’s strange indeed how memories can lie dormant in a man’s mind for so many years. Yet those memories can be awakened and brought forth fresh and new, just by something you’ve seen, or something you’ve heard, or the sight of an old familiar face.”

— Wilson Rawls

22. “In his fighting heart, there was no fear.”

— Wilson Rawls

23. “What I saw was more than I could stand. The noise I heard had been made by Little Ann. All her life she had slept by Old Dan’s side. And although he was dead, she had left the doghouse, had come back to the porch, and snuggled up by his side.”

— Wilson Rawls

24. “It’s hard for a man to stand and watch an old hound fight against such odds, especially if that man has memories in his heart like I had in mine. I had seen the time when an old hound like that had given his life so that I might life.”

— Wilson Rawls

25. “The fishermen were wonderful, as true sportsmen are. They seemed to sense the urgency in my voice and always bought my wares. However, many was the time I’d find my vegetables left in the abandoned camp.”

— Wilson Rawls

26. “A man’s children should have an education. They should get out and see the world and meet people.”

— Wilson Rawls

27. “Our home was in a beautiful valley far back in the rugged Ozarks. The country was new and sparsely settled. The land we lived on was Cherokee land, allotted to my mother because of the Cherokee blood that flowed in her veins. It lay in a strip from the foothills of the mountains to the banks of the Illinois River in northeastern Oklahoma.”

— Wilson Rawls

28. “I don’t see how anything like that can keep a coon in a tree,” I said. “It’ll keep him there all right,” Grandpa.”

— Wilson Rawls

29. “Everything was going along just fine until Mama caught me cutting out of the circles of tin with her scissors. I always swore she could find the biggest switches of any woman in the Ozarks.”

— Wilson Rawls

30. “It’s not good for a boy to want something with all his heart and then be disappointed. Things like that can hurt for a long time.”

— Wilson Rawls

31. “When I saw my little sister kneeling in the center of that snow-white circle, and that old crutch laying on the ground beside her, I forgot about ponies and .22s. I wanted my little sister to get that old leg of hers fixed up. I wanted that more than anything I had ever wanted in my life. That was going to be my wish. Once.”

— Wilson Rawls

32. “I couldn’t understand these town people. If they weren’t staring at a fellow, they were laughing at him.”

— Wilson Rawls

33. “Begrudgingly, they.”

— Wilson Rawls

34. “If there were any wild hogs around, he could scare the daylights out of them with his deep voice.”

— Wilson Rawls

35. “Mama,” I asked, “do you think God made a heaven for all good dogs?” “Yes,” she said, “I’m sure He did.”

— Wilson Rawls

36. “The bigger they are the harder they fall.”

— Wilson Rawls

37. “That time I saw tears in her eyes. It made me feel all empty inside and I cried a little, too. By the time she was through kissing me and talking to me, I was sure I didn’t need any dogs at all. I couldn’t stand to see Mama cry.”

— Wilson Rawls

38. “If they weren’t staring at a fellow, they were laughing at him.”

— Wilson Rawls

39. “Although the old hound had no way of knowing it, he had stirred memories, and what priceless treasures they were. Memories of my boyhood days, an old K. C. Baking Powder can, and two little red hounds. Memories of a wonderful love, unselfish devotion, and death in its saddest form.”

— Wilson Rawls

40. “I’m sure some great champions had slid out of that pipe, and no doubt more than one world record had been broken, but if someone had been there when I came out, I know the record I set would stand today in all its glory.”

— Wilson Rawls

41. “Grandpa,” I asked, “what good’s it going to do us, knowing his name?” “It might do a lot of good,” Grandpa said. “This trainer says that if you could make friends with that monkey he would probably do anything you wanted him to do.” “Make friends with him!” I said. “Grandpa, I don’t.”

— Wilson Rawls

42. “I remembered something my grandfather had told me. He said, “Never underestimate the cunning of an old river coon. When the nights are dark and the ground is frozen and slick, they can pull some mean tricks on a hound. Sometimes the tricks can be fatal.”

— Wilson Rawls

43. “You think you have won, but you haven’t. Although I can’t get the coon, neither can you live, because I have cut off your breath of life.”

— Wilson Rawls

44. “Grandpa had taken in the river had given him a cold, causing him to snore. I never heard such a racket in all my life. I’d have sworn he rattled the paper sacks in our grocery boxes.”

— Wilson Rawls

45. “DAY, I HAD no idea what was in store for me. To begin with, everything was too perfect for anything unusual to happen. It was one of those days when a man feels good, feels like speaking to his neighbor, is glad to live in a country like ours, and proud of his government. You know what I mean, one of those rare days when.”

— Wilson Rawls

46. “I figured the lion had scented my pups. The more I thought about anything harming them, the madder I got. I was ready to die for my dogs.”

— Wilson Rawls

47. “I know,” said Papa. “It’s all right with me, but women are a little different than men. They worry more.”

— Wilson Rawls

48. “I’d been living around Mama for fourteen years; and a boy can learn a lot about his mama in that length of time.”

— Wilson Rawls

49. “It was then I realized it was all too perfect.”

— Wilson Rawls

50. “There I was sitting right in the middle of the finest hunting country in the world and I didn’t even have a dog.”

— Wilson Rawls