---
title: "1 Keeping Journal Quotes By Wallace Stegner"
description: "1 Keeping Journal quotes by Wallace Stegner. Plus more from Wallace Stegner and more Keeping Journal sayings from other authors."
image: "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/74f/wallace-stegner-1352_diary_if-i-had-kept-a-journal-i-could-go-back_2769686.jpg"
---

> [“If I had kept a journal, I could go back through it and check up on what memory reports plausibly but not necessarily truly. But keeping a journal then would have been like making notes while going over Niagara Falls…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wallace-stegner/if-i-had-kept-a-journal-i-could-go-back-through-it-and-check-up-on/)

[Wallace Stegner](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/wallace-stegner/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/74f/wallace-stegner-1352_diary_if-i-had-kept-a-journal-i-could-go-back_2769686.jpg)

## More by Wallace Stegner

> [“I have to blame myself for not finding any way of reaching him, but I can't feel that either Ruth or I had anything…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wallace-stegner/i-have-to-blame-myself-for-not-finding-any-way-of-reaching-him-but-i/)

[Wallace Stegner](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/wallace-stegner/)

> [No life goes past so swiftly as an eventless one, no clock spins like a clock whose days are all alike.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wallace-stegner/no-life-goes-past-so-swiftly-as-an-eventless-one-no-clock-spins-like/)

[Wallace Stegner](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/wallace-stegner/)

> [“within yourself, you became a grave for her as you were a grave for Chet, and you carried your dead unquietly within you. —”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wallace-stegner/within-yourself-you-became-a-grave-for-her-as-you-were-a-grave-for/)

[Wallace Stegner](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/wallace-stegner/)

> [Towns are like people. Old ones often have character, the new ones are interchangeable.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wallace-stegner/towns-are-like-people-old-ones-often-have-character-the-new-ones-are/)

[Wallace Stegner](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/wallace-stegner/)

> [By his very profession, a serious fiction writer is a vendor of the sensuous particulars of life, a perceiver and handler of things. His…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wallace-stegner/by-his-very-profession-a-serious-fiction-writer-is-a-vendor-of-the/)

[Wallace Stegner](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/wallace-stegner/)

> [“The creative writer is compulsively concrete . . . . His fictional house should be haunted by ideas, not inhabited by them; they should…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wallace-stegner/the-creative-writer-is-compulsively-concrete-his-fictional-house/)

[Wallace Stegner](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/wallace-stegner/)

> [Hard writing makes easy reading.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wallace-stegner/hard-writing-makes-easy-reading/)

[Wallace Stegner](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/wallace-stegner/)

> [You married me...but you didn't marry what you could make out of me.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wallace-stegner/you-married-me-but-you-didn-t-marry-what-you-could-make-out-of-me/)

[Wallace Stegner](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/wallace-stegner/)

> [Wisdom. . .is knowing what you have to accept.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wallace-stegner/wisdom-is-knowing-what-you-have-to-accept/)

[Wallace Stegner](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/wallace-stegner/)

> [“His mouth is full of ecology, his mind is full of fumes.”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wallace-stegner/his-mouth-is-full-of-ecology-his-mind-is-full-of-fumes/)

[Wallace Stegner](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/wallace-stegner/)

> [I gave my heart to the mountains the minute I stood beside this river with its spray in my face and watched it thunder…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wallace-stegner/i-gave-my-heart-to-the-mountains-the-minute-i-stood-beside-this-river/)

[Wallace Stegner](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/wallace-stegner/)

> [“Poetry ought to be a by-product of living, and you can't have a by-product unless you've got a product first .”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wallace-stegner/poetry-ought-to-be-a-by-product-of-living-and-you-can-t-have-a-by/)

[Wallace Stegner](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/wallace-stegner/)

> [Something will have gone out of us as a people if we ever let the remaining wilderness be destroyed; if we permit the last…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wallace-stegner/something-will-have-gone-out-of-us-as-a-people-if-we-ever-let-the/)

[Wallace Stegner](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/wallace-stegner/)

> [“Some people, I am told, have memories like computers, nothing to do but punch the button and wait for the print-out. Mine is more…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wallace-stegner/some-people-i-am-told-have-memories-like-computers-nothing-to-do-but/)

[Wallace Stegner](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/wallace-stegner/)

> [ “\[Y\]ou were too alert to the figurative possibilities of words not to see the phrase \[angle of repose\] as descriptive of human as well… ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wallace-stegner/y-ou-were-too-alert-to-the-figurative-possibilities-of-words-not-to/)

[Wallace Stegner](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/wallace-stegner/)

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