Quote

To an American, land is solidity, goodness, and hope. American history is about land.

William Least Heat-Moon

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

William Least Heat-Moon
Age: 85
Born: 1939
Born: August 27
Historian
Writer
Kansas City
Missouri
Solidity
Goodness
Land
American
Hope
History

More quotes by William Least Heat-Moon

Image
A man who couldn't make things go right could at least go. He could quit trying to get out of the way of life. Chuck routine. Live the real jeopardy of circumstance. It was a question of dignity.
William Least Heat-Moon
Image
The biggest hindrance to learning is fear of showing one's self a fool.
William Least Heat-Moon
Image
Whoever the last true cowboy in America turns out to be, he's likely to be an Indian.
William Least Heat-Moon
Image
Beware thoughts that come in the night. They aren't turned properly they come in askew, free of sense and restriction, deriving from the most remote of sources.
William Least Heat-Moon
Image
Memory is each man's own last measure, and for some, the only achievement.
William Least Heat-Moon
Image
No yesterdays on the road.
William Least Heat-Moon
Image
I can't say, over the miles, that I had learned what I had wanted to know because I hadn't known what I wanted to know. But I did learn what I didn't know I wanted to know.
William Least Heat-Moon
Image
You never feel better than when you start feeling good after you've been feeling bad.
William Least Heat-Moon
Image
...who can say where a voyage starts - not the the actual passage but the dream of a journey and its urge to find a way?
William Least Heat-Moon
Image
The Lewis and Clark tale has all the all the elements that one would want to put into a movie. It has the, continual threat for life it's got the thread of Indians it's got disease. It has daily risk where these men may go under the water. It's got the fight with the elements. It's got the el the role of the unknown continually threatening them.
William Least Heat-Moon
Image
Boredom lies only with the traveler's limited perception and his failure to explore deeply enough. After a while, I found my perception limited.
William Least Heat-Moon
Image
Instead of insight, maybe all a man gets is strength to wander for a while. Maybe the only gift is a chance to inquire, to know nothing for certain. An inheritance of wonder and nothing more.
William Least Heat-Moon
Image
The open road is a beckoning, a strangeness, a place where a man can lose himself.
William Least Heat-Moon
Image
Get out and find ...the country. And ourselves.
William Least Heat-Moon
Image
Other than to amuse himself, why should a man pretend to know where he's going or understand what he sees?
William Least Heat-Moon
Image
On the old highway maps of America, the main routes were red and the back roads blue. Now even the colors are changing.
William Least Heat-Moon
Image
I did learn what I didn't know I wanted to know.
William Least Heat-Moon
Image
For me, writing is not a search for explanations but a ramble in quest of what informs a place, a hunt for equivalents.
William Least Heat-Moon
Image
I contend that in the kind of nonfiction I write, and that other people also pursue, anything is permissible provided the reader knows what you're taking liberties with.
William Least Heat-Moon
Image
Our religion keeps reminding us that we aren't just will and thoughts. We're also sand and wind and thunder. Rain. The seasons. All those things. You learn to respect everything because you are everything. If you respect yourself, you respect all things.
William Least Heat-Moon