"I'd have stayed in Tennessee and wrote poetry for a living"

"On the way to San Antonio they passed two settlements -- nothing more than a church house and a few little stores, but settlements anyways, and not ten miles apart.

'Now look at that,' Augustus said.  'The dern people are making towns everywhere.  It's our fault, you know.'

'It ain't our fault and it ain't our business, either,' Call said.  'People can do what they want.'

'Why, naturally, since we chased out the Indians and hung all the god bandits,' Augustus said.  'Does it ever occur to you that everything we done was probably a mistake?  Just look at it from a nature standpoint.  If you've got enough snakes around the place you won't be overrun with rats or varmints.  The way I see it, the Indians and the bandits have the same job to do.  Leave 'em be and you won't constantly be having to ride around these dern settlements.'

'You don't have to ride around them,' Call said.  'What harm do they do?'

'If I'd have wanted civilization I'd have stayed in Tennessee and wrote poetry for a living,' Augustus said.  'Me and you done our work too well.  We killed off most of the people that made this country interesting to begin with.'"

-- Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove