That is all the National Parks are about. Use, but do no harm.
Wallace StegnerRead
No place is a place until things that have happened in it are remembered in history, ballads, yarns, legends, or monuments. Fictions serve as well as facts.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Places acquire significance through the memories and stories associated with them.
This quote by Wallace Stegner emphasizes that a location gains its value and identity not merely through its physical existence, but through the events and narratives that unfold there. Whether through history, stories, or monuments, both real and fictional accounts contribute to how we perceive and understand a place, illustrating the power of memory and storytelling in shaping our connection to the world.
Themes
PlaceMemoryHistoryStoriesIdentityNarrative
In practice
Example use cases
During a speech about the importance of preserving local history, this quote can illustrate how places have stories that enrich our communities.
More from Wallace Stegner
All quotes βTouch. 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.
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Hope was always out ahead of fact, possibility obscured the outlines of reality.
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Young writers should be encouraged to write, and discouraged from thinking they are writers.
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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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