That is all the National Parks are about. Use, but do no harm.
Wallace StegnerRead
I think, don't you, that a girl with any delicacy of feeling couldn't bring herself to marry a man indirectly responsible for her father's death. No matter how much she was in love with him.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote highlights the conflict between love and loyalty to family, suggesting that deep emotional connections can be overshadowed by moral dilemmas.
In this quote, Wallace Stegner explores the profound struggles that can arise within romantic relationships, particularly when they conflict with familial loyalty and ethical considerations. It illustrates that even unconditional love can be challenged by circumstances that compromise one's values or bring about emotional turmoil, emphasizing the complexity of human emotions and decision-making in relationships.
Themes
LoveLoyaltyFamilyRelationshipsConflictMorality
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be used in a discussion about romantic relationships on a podcast.
More from Wallace Stegner
All quotes →Touch. It is touch that is the deadliest enemy of chastity, loyalty, monogamy, gentility with its codes and conventions and restraints. By touch we are betrayed and betray others ... an accidental brushing of shoulders or touching of hands ... hands laid on shoulders in a gesture of comfort that lies like a thief, that takes, not gives, that wants, not offers, that awakes, not pacifies. When one flesh is waiting, there is electricity in the merest contact.
Wallace StegnerRead
Hope was always out ahead of fact, possibility obscured the outlines of reality.
Wallace StegnerRead
Young writers should be encouraged to write, and discouraged from thinking they are writers.
Wallace StegnerRead
I was shaped by the west and have lived most of my life in it, and nothing would gratify me more than to see it in all its subregions and subcultures both prosperous and environmentally healthy, with a civilization to match its scenery.
Wallace StegnerRead
Most things break, including hearts. The lessons of life amount not to wisdom, but to scar tissue and callus.
Wallace StegnerRead
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