Wallace Stegner - West Quotes

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The West is politically reactionary and exploitive: admit it. The West as a whole is guilty of inexplicable crimes against the land: admit that, too. The West is rootless, culturally half-baked. So be it.

Wallace Stegner

There is nothing in the history of the West that indicates any great concern for the environment or for the renewability and sustainability of the economy. Nor for the labor force used in that exploitation. Those are all serious mistakes.

Wallace Stegner

The Westerner is less a person than a continuing adaptation. The West is less a place than a process.

Wallace Stegner

One cannot be pessimistic about the West. This is the native home of hope. When it fully learns that cooperation, not rugged individualism, is the quality that most characterizes and preserves it, then it will have achieved itself and outlived its origins. Then it has a chance to create a society to match its scenery.

Wallace Stegner