Herb Thiel
My Favorite Louis L'Amour Quotes
(Some of them)
This page is just a few of the quotes from Louis L'Amour that I like a lot.
| Quote | Character | Book |
|---|---|---|
| "Somebody comin'," he said softly. "Five or six, maybe." His words were spoken over an empty fire, for each of us vanished ghostlike into the surrounding darkness. I, fortunately, had the presence of mind to retain my coffee. With the Ferguson rifle in my right hand, I drank coffee from the cup in my left. | Ronan Chantry | The Ferguson Rifle |
| The sunset was spectacular. The sky streaked itself with rose and the region of the sun became an indescribable glory. All my life I have used words, and yet I find times when they are totally inadequate. | Ronan Chantry | The Ferguson Rifle |
| "I have to make do with my pick." "'Pick?" "Arkansas Toothpick." When I said it, I could see he was ignorant. "It's a kind of knife." | Echo Sackett | Ride The River |
| "I love the mountains, and besides, while Regal is laid up, who would hunt for them?" "You mean you hunt? You? You actually kill things?" "Yes ma'am. Whatever meat we have is wild meat, shot by me when the boys are away." | Echo Sackett | Ride The River |
| "And who is Regal?" "Right now he's laid up. Had him a little go-around with a bear." "You mean he shot a bear?" "Not exactly. This was a notorious bear, a troublesome bear, and he tackled Regal, not knowing he was a Sackett, so Regal had to kill him..." | Regal Sackett | Ride The River |
| "We'll find him then and see he's freed, if I have to bring all the Sacketts down from the hills." "How many are there? Of the Sacketts, I mean?" "Nobody rightly knows, but even one Sackett is quite a few." | Echo Sackett | Ride The River |
| "Who the devil are you?" "Not the devil, Mr. Sardust, but like him, I can open the gates to hell. I'm Mordecai Sackett. You ready to go?" | Mordecai Sackett | Ride The River |
| I ate seven eggs, nine strips of bacon and six hot-cakes, and drank five cups of coffee. Tyrel watched me, no smile on his face. Then he looked over at Dru. "I'd sooner buy his clothes than feed him," he said. | Tell Sackett | Sackett |
| "I tell them that you're a good man." Me? It was the first time in a long while anybody had said that about Nolan Sackett. Oh, they say, 'He's a good man with a gun,' or 'He's a fair hand with a rope,' or 'He can ride anything wears hair,' but nobody just out and said I was a good man. A man has to avoid that sort of thing. First thing a man knows he's tryin' to live up to it. And then what kind of an outlaw is he? | Nolan Sackett | Mustang Man |
| Now Logan was a Clinch Mountain Sackett, and those boys from Clinch Mountain are rougher than a cob. There were those who called Logan an outlaw, but he was family, and he was handy with a shooting iron. I wrote to him too. | Flagan Sackett about cousin Logan | Galloway |
| My voice isn't much, but I often used to tell folks I was a singer, and that I'd sung for crowds of up to three thousand. I didn't tell them I was talking of cows, but they heard my voice and probably guessed. | Flagan Sackett | Galloway |
| Charlie Farnum and me we started east for the herd, riding together. When we were a few miles off we started to sing, and we sang a dozen songs before we shut up and left it to the coyotes. That Charlie Farnum had a better voice than me. For that matter, so did the coyotes. | Flagan Sackett | Galloway |
| There was that Texas Ranger, McDonald, who said, "There's no stopping a man who knows he's in the right and keeps a-coming." | Flagan Sackett | Galloway |
| Squatting by the fire I tried to blink the sleep from my eyes while pouring a cup of coffee. It was hot, and black as the hinges of hell, but it tasted good. | Flagan Sackett | Galloway |
| Logan Sackett wasn't a bad man in the eastern sense. In the west a bad man was not necessarily an evil man or an outlaw he was a bad man to tangle with. He was a man to leave alone, and such a one was Logan However, I'll bank on one thing. He never done anything mean or small in his life. | Flagan Sackett on cousin Logan | Galloway |
| You could always tell a boy who'd been tryin' to court one of Jack Ben's girls because he walked kind of straight up an' bent back, and he never set down nowhere. That was because of the rock salt ol' Jack Ben kep' in his shotgun. | Tell Sackett about Jack Ben Trelawney, father of one of the Trelawney girls. | Treasure Mountain |
| "You runnin' scared?" she scoffed. "First time I ever heard of a Sackett runnin'unless pa was a-shootin' at him." | Nell Trelawney | Treasure Mountain |
| "We'd better give the boys a chance to blow off some steam." "They'd better blow it careful," I said. "Some of those Canadians are mighty rough. Nice folks, but they can handle themselves." | Tell Sackett | Lonely On The Mountain |
| "Logan is a man who takes hanging right serious" | Tell Sackett | Lonely On The Mountain |
| "Especially he'p you fight your battles. Why, ain't one of them Clinch Mountain Sacketts wouldn't climb a tree to fight a bear." | Colburn "Colly" Sackett, as quoted by Tell | Lonely On The Mountain |
| She looked at me, then sniffed. "I might of knowed it. Clinch Mountain, ain't you?" "What was that, ma'am?" I was startled. "I said you're a Clinch Mountain Sackett, ain't you? I'd read your sign anywhere, boy. You're probably one of those no-account sons of Tarbil Sackett, ain't you?" "Grandson, ma'am." | Emily [Sackett] Talon | Ride The Dark Trail |
| "You ever been to Wyoming?" I asked him. "Or Montana?" | Logan Sackett | Ride The Dark Trail |
| "If one of you makes a wrong move I'm going to kill your boss." "You ain't got the guts," he said, his tone ugly. "Kill him boys." "Boss," a slim, wiry man was talking, "that's Logan Sackett." | Logan Sackett | Ride The Dark Trail |
| "But that's over, Sackett. Why did you take up for Em Talon?" "Emily Talon is a Sackett. I don't need no more reason than that." | Logan Sackett | Ride The Dark Trail |
| "Howdy! Passin' through?" "That's my name," I said, grinning. "Seems to me that's about all I do. Pass through. Been here long?" | Milo Talon | The Man From The Broken Hills |
| The nearest one was Lew Pine, as I knew the voice. He said, "Now I've got you, you—!" He always had to shoot off his mouth. I shot off my gun. | Passin' Through | Passin' Through |
| "What's your other name? Matty what?" "Higgins," she said, then after a pause, "I'm a Clinch Mountain Higgins." | Passin' Through & Matty | Passin' Through |
If you are looking to get into detailed discussions about some of these things I would highly, highly (did I say highly?) recommend The Discusion Forum at the official Louis L'Amour website. There is a lot of information there about Louis and the West in general.