For decades, generations of readers have shared their favorite passages of favorite Louis L''Amour novels and short stories: parents with their children, neighbors with their friends, executives with their staff and clergy with their congregations. They pass around dog-eared copies of the books, underlined and yellowing, recalling words that echoes in their readers'' hearts and minds long after the last page was turned. Now, many of these selections have been collected in a remarkable volume representing some of the richest ore of the L''Amour lode: voices that heralded the settling of the frontier, of the man and women whose spirit and soul shaped our nation. In these words, Louis L''Amour describes the American experience, bringing our heritage to life, in ways no other author has.

No L''Amour reader has a more unique perspective on his work than Angelique, his only daughter. In an extraordinary feat for every Louis L''Amour fan, and in loving appreciation of her father, she has compiled A Trail of Memories: The Quotations of Louis L''Amour, drawn from her father''s best-loved works of fiction, including the Sackett novels, Last of the Breed, The Walking Drum and nearly two dozen others.

"By reading his words, each reader has met a part of my father," she writes in her introduction. "Each hero has a bit of Dad''s experience that makes him who he is. With Lanso, it is all those boxing matches as Dad grew up. With Barnabas Sackett, it is the sailor and explorer in my father...I think that this collection of quotations from my father''s books reveals much of what makes Dad who he is, for these words are the heart and soul of what he believes, and what he wants to leave behind."

Angelique has selected nearly a thousand of her favorite, most powerful and poignant L''Amour quotations--arranged by category and annotated with the book in which it appears--on more than a score of universal subjects such as: Love, Friendship and Loyalty; Family and Home; Honor, the Law and Justice; the Frontier; Women; and Men and Bravery. One such example from Sackett''s Land: "He never knew when he was whipped--so he never was."

A wonderful gift from a daughter to her father--and from Angelique L''Amour to her father''s readers--A Trail of Memories: The Quotations of Louis L''Amour will be a cherished keepsake of words to enjoy, and words to live by.