Elmer Kelton > Quotes

“A bad habit or two is good for a man or a beast. Did you ever know a man who didn't have any bad habits? I have, and I always hated the son of a bitch." -- Charlie Flagg”
― Elmer Kelton, The Time It Never Rained

“A little honest swearin" wipeth away anger and bringeth peace to the soul.”
― Elmer Kelton

“I'll be riding rough horses when you are salted away in a box.”
― Elmer Kelton, The Time It Never Rained

“I just write whenever I can.”
― Elmer Kelton

“A man does what he feels is right, no matter what it costs him.”
― Elmer Kelton, The Time It Never Rained

“Andy said, “Yonder goes a man who hates the sin, but he’s willin’ enough to take its wages.”
Shanty replied, “I’m glad I won’t be wearin’ his shoes when he walks up to the Golden Gates.”
“He’s wearin’ better shoes than me and you.”
“I’d rather be barefooted.”
― Elmer Kelton, The Way of the Coyote

“Do you know how much cheaper we could buy that feed if we’d get into the government program?” “The feed wouldn’t be cheaper. It’d just mean somebody else was helpin’ pay for it, is all.”
― Elmer Kelton, The Time It Never Rained

“How far do you think we’d get, afoot like we are?” “Maybe when we leave here we won’t be afoot.” “Takin’ other people’s horses is what got us into the army in the first place.” “And it’ll get us away from here. Stay close to me and maybe you’ll learn somethin’.” “I learned a lot the last time.”
― Elmer Kelton, Badger Boy

“Rusty remembered that Mother Dora had put coffee in the sack of grub she had given him. “I’ll boil you some coffee, Preacher. I never heard you sermonize against that.”
“And you never will. When the Christians drove the Turks from the gates of Vienna, the Turks left their stores of coffee behind. I feel sure that was the Lord’s notion of a proper gift to His faithful.”
Rusty had no idea where Vienna was. Probably not in Texas, or he would have heard about it.”
― Elmer Kelton, The Buckskin Line

“Don’t try to hand me that. Everybody lines up at the public trough when he gets the chance.”

“Not Charlie Flagg. He never did.”

The auditor mused a long time. “What is he, some kind of a nut?”
― Elmer Kelton, The Time It Never Rained

“It was a comforting sight, this country. It was an ageless land where the past was still a living thing and old voices still whispered, where the freshness of the pioneer time had not yet all faded, where a few of the old dreams were not yet dark with tarnish. It had not been so long, really, since feathered Comanches had roamed these hills a horseback seeking after game, or occasionally in warpaint seeking honor and booty and blood. Eighty years … one man’s lifetime.”
― Elmer Kelton, The Time It Never Rained

“He pondered darkly on how a man is brought down from being a hawk in flight to a slave in chains.”
― Elmer Kelton, The Good Old Boys: A Hewey Calloway Novel

“An oilfield scars up the land. And them oil people, they don’t care much about the land, most of them. They’re only interested in what’s under it. They’ll use up your water or leave it polluted with salt if you don’t watch them. There’ll come a time in this country when a barrel of water is worth more than a barrel of oil.”
― Elmer Kelton, The Time It Never Rained

“The world had known but one perfect man, and no perfect woman whatever.”
― Elmer Kelton, The Time It Never Rained

“He’s not the same as you; he never was. I don’t know why it’s been so hard for you to see that. He lives in a different world than you do.”
Sadly he shook his head. “We’re all living in a different world any more. I liked the old one better.”
― Elmer Kelton, The Time It Never Rained

“We envy you for your guts, Charlie, but I reckon we resent you a little, too, for bein’ stronger than the rest of us. Times past, they used to crucify the prophets.”
― Elmer Kelton, The Time It Never Rained

“He spat several smoky adjectives in a random mixture of English and Spanish. That was an underrated advantage of being bilingual; it gave a man a wider range of therapeutic outlet.”
― Elmer Kelton, The Time It Never Rained

“Goes to show that a man shouldn’t lose faith in his young just because they dance to a different music.”
― Elmer Kelton, The Time It Never Rained

“Drouth by Texas definition is a period of severely deficient moisture that laps over from one year into another. Often it is of two to three years’ duration. Anything shorter, though it may be serious, is termed a dry spell, as if more annoyance than hardship.”
― Elmer Kelton, The Time It Never Rained

“The Good Old Boys,”
― Elmer Kelton, Sandhills Boy: The Winding Trail of a Texas Writer

“What I can’t do for myself, I’ll do without.”
― Elmer Kelton, The Time It Never Rained