Education of a Wandering Man

My definition of a good vacation is having the ability to start and finish a book.  This particular one inspired me.  Here are some excerpts I chose to highlight from Louis L'Amour's memoir, Education of a Wandering Man.

...for to live well one must live with awareness.

...school was interfering with my education.

We teach a child to creep when he should be running: education becomes a task rather than excitement...Personally, I believe children should be taught to see, to observe, and subject what they have seen to analysis...Very young children will often learn a difficult subject easily unless someone tells them it is "hard".

We do not at present educate people to think, but rather to have opinions, and that is something altogether different.

It is not necessary to travel in order to write good stories.  It is only necessary to see, to understand and reveal.

Start writing, no matter about what.  The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on.  You can sit and look at a page for a long time and nothing will happen.  Start writing and it will.

...a writer owes a debt of authenticity to his readers

It is not enough to have learned, for living is sharing and I must offer what I have for whatever it is worth.

...it is a labor of love, and I would relinquish no part of it at any price, I do not need help; I need time.

It seems to me that every written word is an effort to understand man's place in the universe.

Most of us hold the dream of becoming something better than we are...

Too often, the way taken is the wrong way, with too much emphasis on what we want to have, rather than what we wish to become.

One hopes the way will be clear, the road open.  So as one pilgrim to another, I leave you with that wish: "May there be a road!"

Quotes L'Amour chose to incorporate into this book:

Do what thy manhood bids thee do,

From none but self expect applause;

He noblest lives and noblest dies

Who makes and keeps his self-made laws.

-Sir Richard Francis Burton

Much is not dared because it seems hard; much seems hard only because it is not dared.

-Prince Wenzel, Anton Von Kalintz, Austrian statesman

A book is a friend that will do what no friend does - be silent when we wish to think.

-Will Durant

Talent is nothing but long patience. - Gustave Flaubert

No choicer gift can any man give to another than his spirit's intimate converse with itself.
- Schleiermacher