Zane Grey Quotes

Pearl Zane Grey (1872-1939)

Zane Grey was an American author and dentist best known for his popular adventure novels and stories associated with the Western genre in literature and the arts. (Zane Grey Quotes)

“A bandit, then, in the details of his life, the schemes, troubles, friendships, relations, was no different from any other kind of a man. He was human, and things that might constitute black evil for observers were dear to him, a part of him.”
Zane Grey
The Border Legion

“A man can die. He is glorious when he calmly accepts death; but when he fights like a tiger, when he stands at bay his back to the wall, a broken weapon in his hand, bloody, defiant, game to the end, then he is sublime. Then he wrings respect from the souls of even his bitterest foes. Then he is avenged even in his death.”
Zane Grey
Betty Zane

“A valley that had some of the characteristics of a canyon yawned beneath, so deep and wide that it appeared like a blue lake, so long that he could only see the north end, which notched under a rugged mountain slope, green and black and golden and white according to the successive steps toward the heights. The height upon which he stood was the last of the ridges, for the elevation that lay directly across was a noble range of foothills, timbered, canyoned, apparently insurmountable for horses. Gray cliffs stood out of the green, crags of yellow rock mounted like castles.”
Zane Grey
Valley of Wild Horses

“All the saddle horses, and even some of the pack animals, were affected by the scent of the wild herd. Freedom still lived deep down in their hearts. That was why a broken horse, no matter how gentle, became the wildest of the wild when he got free.”
Zane Grey
Valley of Wild Horses

“American should read the signs of the times, realize the crisis, and meet it in an American way. Otherwise we are done as a race. Money is God in the older countries. But it should never become God in America. If it does we will make the fall of Rome pale into insignificance.”
Zane Grey
The Call of the Canyon

“An awful sense of her deadness, of her soul-blighting selfishness, began to dawn upon her as something monstrous out of dim, gray obscurity.”
Zane Grey
To The Last Man

“And as he lost that softness of nature, so he lost his fear of men. He would watch for Oldring, biding his time, and he would kill this great black-bearded rustler who had held a girl in bondage, who had used her to his infamous ends.”
Zane Grey
Riders of the Purple Sage

“And the reason that she did not falter and fail in this terrible situation was because her despair, great as it was, did not equal her love.”
Zane Grey
To The Last Man

“And you must forget what you are—were—I mean, and be happy. When you remember that old life you are bitter, and it hurts me.”
Zane Grey
Riders of the Purple Sage

“Armies of marching men told of that blight of nations old or young—war. These, and birds unnamable, and beasts unclassable, with dots and marks and hieroglyphics, recorded the history of a bygone people. Symbols they were of an era that had gone into the dim past, leaving only these marks, {Symbols recording the history of a bygone people.} forever unintelligible; yet while they stood, century after century, ineffaceable, reminders of the glory, the mystery, the sadness of life.”
Zane Grey
The Last of the Plainsmen

“But he clung to hope, to faith in life, to the victory of the virtuous, to the defeat of evil.”
Zane Grey
Zane Grey Classics

“But that never was true. Glenn was as sane as I am, and, my dear, that’s pretty sane, I’ll have you remember. But he must have suffered some terrible blight to his spirit-some blunting of his soul.”
Zane Grey
To The Last Man

“But what can women do in times of war? They help, they cheer, they inspire, and if their cause is lost they must accept death or worse. Few women have the courage for self-destruction. “To the victor belong the spoils,” and women have ever been the spoils of war.”
Zane Grey
Betty Zane

“Dad, I don’t know women very well, but I reckon they live by their hearts.”
Zane Grey
Valley of Wild Horses

“False education, false standards, false environment had developed her into a woman who imagined she must feed her body on the milk and honey of indulgence.”
Zane Grey
To The Last Man

“Fishing keeps men boys longer than any other pursuit.”
Zane Grey
Zane Grey on Fishing

“Good and evil began to seem incomprehensibly blended in her judgment. It was her belief that evil could not come forth from good; yet here was a murderer who dwarfed in gentleness, patience, and love any man she had ever known.” (Zane Grey Quotes)
Zane Grey
Riders of the Purple Sage

“Hard work makes for what I reckon you like in a man, but don’t understand. As I look back over my life-an’ let me say, young fellar, it’s been a tough one-what I remember most an’ feel best over are the hardest jobs I ever did, an’ those that cost the most sweat an’ blood.”
Zane Grey
Zane Grey Classics

“He ran his hands over Ken’s smooth skin and felt of the muscles.”
Zane Grey
The Young Pitcher

“He saw his enemies stealthily darting from rock to tree, and tree to bush, creeping through the brush, and slipping closer and closer every moment. On three sides were his hated foes and on the remaining side—the abyss. Without a moment’s hesitation the intrepid Major spurred his horse at the precipice. Never shall I forget that thrilling moment. The three hundred savages were silent as they realized the Major’s intention. Those in the fort watched with staring eyes. A few bounds and the noble steed reared high on his hind legs. Outlined by the clear blue sky the magnificent animal stood for one brief instant, his black mane flying in the wind, his head thrown up and his front hoofs pawing the air like Marcus Curtius’ mailed steed of old, and then down with a crash, a cloud of dust, and the crackling of pine limbs.”
Zane Grey
Betty Zane

“He saw how some divine guidance had directed his footsteps to this home. How many years had it taken him to get there!”
Zane Grey
Zane Grey Classics

“He saw the dark, slender, graceful outline of her form. A woman lay in his arms! And he held her closer. He who had been alone in the sad, silent watches of the night was not now and never must be again alone. He who had yearned for the touch of a hand felt the long tremble and the heart-beat of a woman.”
Zane Grey
Riders of the Purple Sage

“He was thinking that if he had his life to live over again he would begin at once to find happiness in other people’s happiness.”
Zane Grey
Zane Grey Classics

“Her forefathers had been Vikings, savage chieftains who bore no cross and brooked no hindrance to their will.”
Zane Grey
Riders of the Purple Sage

“I am waiting to plunge down, to shatter and crash, roar and boom, to bury your trail, and close forever the outlet to Deception Pass!”
Zane Grey
Riders of the Purple Sage

“I knew you’d never be American enough to help me reconstruct my life.”
Zane Grey
The Call of the Canyon

“I need this wild life, this freedom.”

“If you want fame or wealth or wolves, go out and hunt for them.”
Zane Grey
The Last of the Plainsmen

“Instantly a thick blackness seemed to enfold her and silence as of a dead world settled down upon her. Drowsy as she was she could not close her eyes nor refrain from listening. Darkness and silence were tangible things. She felt them. And they seemed suddenly potent with magic charm to still the tumult of her, to sooth and rest, to create thought she had never thought before. Rest was more than selfish indulgence. Loneliness was necessary to gain conciseness of the soul.”
Zane Grey
The Call of the Canyon

“Instinct may not be greater than reason, but it’s a million years older. Don’t fight your instincts so hard. If they were not good the God of Creation would not have given them to you.”
Zane Grey
The Man of the Forest

“It was wonderful country that faced him, cedar, pinion and sage, colored hills and flats, walls of yellow rock stretch away, and dim purple mountains all around. If his keen eyes did not deceive him there was a bunch of wild horses grazing on top of the first hill.”
Zane Grey
Valley of Wild Horses

“Jane smothered the glow and burn within her, ashamed of a passion for freedom that opposed her duty.”
Zane Grey
Riders of the Purple Sage

“Jealousy is an unjust and stifling thing.”
Zane Grey
The Call of the Canyon

“Ken sat glued to his seat in mingled fear and wrath. Was he to be the butt of those overbearing sophomores?”
Zane Grey
The Young Pitcher

“Like an arrow sprung from a bow Betty flashed past the Colonel and out on the green. Scarcely ten of the long hundred yards had been covered by her flying feet when a roar of angry shouts and yells warned Betty that the keen-eyed savages saw the bag of powder and now knew they had been deceived by a girl.”
Zane Grey
Betty Zane

“Likewise he believed that men wandering or lost in the wilderness often reversed that brutal order of life and became noble, wonderful, and super-human.”
Zane Grey
Zane Grey Classics

“Love of man for woman – love of woman for man. That’s the nature, the meaning, the best of life itself.”
Zane Grey
Riders of the Purple Sage

“Many were the last resting-places of toilers of the wheat there on those hills. And surely in the long frontier days, and in the ages before, men innumerable had gone back to the earth from which they had sprung. The dwelling-places of men were beautiful; it was only life that was sad. In this poignant, revealing hour Kurt could not resist human longings and regrets, though he gained incalculable strength from these two graves on the windy slope. It was not for any man to understand to the uttermost the meaning of life.”
Zane Grey
The Desert of Wheat

“Men rise on steppin’-stones of their dead selves to higher things!”
Zane Grey
Zane Grey Classics

“Morning dawned bright and sparkling after the rain. The air was keen and crisp. The cedars glistened as if decked with diamonds. Pan felt the sweet scent of the damp dust, and it gave him a thrill and a longing for the saddle and the open country.” (Zane Grey Quotes)
Zane Grey
Valley of Wild Horses

“Once he had said to her that a man should never be judged by the result of his labors, but by the nature of his effort.”
Zane Grey
To The Last Man

“She had grown now not to blame any man, honest miner or bloody bandit. She blamed only gold. She doubted its value. She could not see it a blessing. She absolutely knew its driving power to change the souls of men. Could she ever forget that vast ant-hill of toiling diggers and washers, blind and deaf and dumb to all save gold?”
Zane Grey
The Border Legion

“She sensed in him loneliness, hunger for the sound of a voice. She had heard her uncle speak of the loneliness of lonely camp-fires and how all men working or hiding or lost in the wilderness would see sweet faces in the embers and be haunted by soft voices.”
Zane Grey
The Border Legion

“Socialism reached into her mind, to be rejected. She had never understood it clearly, but it seemed to her a state of mind where dissatisfied men and women wanted to share what harder working or more gifted people possessed.”
Zane Grey
To The Last Man

“Some of these wall-eyed fellers who look jest as if they was walking’ in the shadow of Christ himself, right down the sunny road, now they can think of things en’ do things that are really hell-bent.”
Zane Grey
Riders of the Purple Sage

“Soon he would be walking a beat in one of the training camps, with a bugle call in his ears and the turmoil of thousands of soldiers in the making around him; soon, too, he would be walking the deck of a transport… feeling under his feet the soil of a foreign country, with hideous and incomparable war shrieking its shell furies and its man anguish all about him.”
Zane Grey
The Desert of Wheat

“The blindness I mean is blindness that keeps you from seeing’ the truth.”
Zane Grey
Riders of the Purple Sage

“The narrator finds that as a maturing character grows in stature before her friends that she sees less stature while evaluating herself.”
Zane Grey
The Call of the Canyon

“The rugged fallow ground under her feet seemed to her to be a symbol of faith — faith that winter would come and pass — the spring sun and rain would burst the seeds of wheat — and another summer would see the golden fields of waving grain. If she did not live to see them, they would be there just the same; and so life and nature had faith in its promise. That strange whisper was to Lenore the whisper of God.”
Zane Grey
The Desert of Wheat

“There was a bold gleam in his eyes and a smile on his face.”
Zane Grey
The Young Pitcher

“Unhappiness is only a change. Happiness itself is only change. So what does it matter? The great thing is to see life–to understand-to feel-to work-to fight-to endure.” (Zane Grey Quotes)
Zane Grey
To The Last Man

“Unless you begin to control your temper, to forget yourself, to kill your wild impulses, to be kind, to learn what love is-you’ll never last!”
Zane Grey
Zane Grey Classics

“We must dress to make other women jealous and to attract men.”
Zane Grey
To The Last Man

“When he had gotten rid of his exuberance he sat down at once to write to his brother Hal about it, and also his forest-ranger friend, Dick Leslie, with whom he had spent an adventurous time the last summer.”
Zane Grey
The Young Pitcher

“Where I was raised a woman’s word was law. I ain’t quite outgrowed that yet.”
Zane Grey
Riders of the Purple Sage

“Wild men in wild places, fighting cold, heat, starvation, thirst, barrenness, facing the elements in all their ferocity, usually retrograded, descended to the savage, lost all heart and soul and became mere brutes.”
Zane Grey
Zane Grey Classics

“With distrust came suspicion and with suspicion came fear, and with fear came hate-and these, in already distorted minds, inflamed a hell.”
Zane Grey
To The Last Man

“With that they, and many others, left the hall and joined the moving crowd in the street. The night was delightfully cool. Stars shone white in a velvet sky. The dry wind from mountain and desert blew in their faces.”
Zane Grey
Valley of Wild Horses