James Salter Quotations

A name, of course is like a piece of clothing, isn't it? It gives you an impression right away.

The writing is really important in books that affect me. I read for the writing. The story is usually of less interest to me. It's the words that break your heart.

Like books you will never have the chance to read, there are languages you do not know, and you're not going to get a chance to learn, so you'll never really know what was written, only the approximation.

Every nation feels itself to be superior, but in America it's a jaunty feeling, and in some cases a rather ominous one among the super-patriots.

There is no situation like the open road, and seeing things completely afresh. I'm used to traveling. It's not a question of meeting or seeing new faces particularly, or hearing new stories, but of looking at life in a different way. It's the curtain coming up on another act.

Man was very fortunate to have invented the book. Without it, the past would completely vanish, and we would be left with nothing, we would be naked on earth.

The death of kings can be recited, but not of one's child.

I spent the night on a sliver of rock high up on the east face of Long's Peak, climbing with Tom Frost, and slept at the icy feet of the Dru, listening to the lightning crack above me and the thunder roll down. I only did it to write about it. I would never go up on the Grotto Wall for fun.

It's tremendous: this world, this life. Take it while you have it.

Lots of scripts are written and not made, even scripts that people want to make.