Hondo QUOTES

1 " Destarte! How musical! What does it mean?" "You can't say it except in Mescalero. It means Morning, but that isn't what it means, either. Indian words are more than just that. They also mean the feel and the sound of the name. It means like Crack of Dawn, the first bronze light that makes the buttes stand out against the gray desert. It means the first sound you hear of a brook curling over some rocks-some trout jumping and a beaver crooning. It means the sound a stallion makes when he whistles at some mares just as the first puff of wind kicks up at daybreak. "It means like you get up in the first light and you and her go out of the wickiup, where it smells smoky and private and just you and her, and kind of safe with just the two of you there, and you stand outside and smell the first bite of the wind coming down from the high divide and promising the first snowfall. Well, you just can't say what it means in English. Anyway, that was her name. Destarte. "

― Louis L'Amour , Hondo

3 " - This Indian wife you have...
- Had. She's dead.
- I'm sorry. I didn't mean to bring up
an unhappy memory.
- I can't remember anything unhappy
about Destarte. "

― Louis L'Amour , Hondo

5 " NO MAN KNOWS the hour of his ending, nor can he choose the place or the manner of his going. To each it is given to die proudly, to die well, and this is, indeed, the final measure of the man. "

― Louis L'Amour , Hondo

7 " Under a quiet sky the planet turned, and horses ate, and men slept, and death waited for morning. — "

― Louis L'Amour , Hondo

9 " Destarte! How musical! What does it mean?” “You can’t say it except in Mescalero. It means Morning, but that isn’t what it means, either. Indian words are more than just that. They also mean the feel and the sound of the name. It means like Crack of Dawn, the first bronze light that makes the buttes stand out against the gray desert. It means the first sound you hear of a brook curling over some rocks—some trout jumping and a beaver crooning. It means the sound a stallion makes when he whistles at some mares just as the first puff of wind kicks up at daybreak. “It means like you get up in the first light and you and her go out of the wickiup, where it smells smoky and private and just you and her, and kind of safe with just the two of you there, and you stand outside and smell the first bite of the wind coming down from the high divide and promising the first snowfall. Well, you just can’t say what it means in English. Anyway, that was her name. Destarte.” Rather amazed, Angie stared at him. “Why, that’s poetry! "

― Louis L'Amour , Hondo

11 " Indians got a story,” Hondo said, “about a hunter who chased a puma until he caught him. Then it was the other way around. "

― Louis L'Amour , Hondo

13 " and studied the terrain. Twice that morning he had seen unshod hoofprints. There were Apaches around. He walked back to the boy and ate his share of the rabbit while Johnny was brushing the spines from a tuna the way he had shown him earlier. As the boy ate the desert fruit, he thought about how fast the morning had gone, how much he had enjoyed it. And this was the son "

― Louis L'Amour , Hondo