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Edward Abbey Quotes - Page 21

All Quotes Adventure Age Anarchy Appearance Army Art Atheism Atheist Beer Belief Business Challenges Character Children Coffee Common Sense Communication Country Critics Culture Democracy Desire Doubt Duty Dying Earth Evil Fate Fear Football Freedom Fun Funny Giving Grace Greed Growth Guru Hate Heart Heaven Hell Home Honor Human Nature Ideology Inspirational Jesus Journey Joy Laughter Liberty Life Love Lying Madness Metaphysics Military Nature Pain Passion Peace Philosophy Police Positive Pride Purpose Rain Reading Reality Regret Revolution Revolver Risk Running School Seven Silence Simplicity Sin Solitude Soul Sports Study Stupidity Suffering Survival Taxes Technology Terrorism Theology Tragedy Travel Virtue Waiting Wall Water Wilderness Wit Writing

John Updike: our greatest suburban chic-boutique man of letters. A smug and fatal complacency has stunted his growth beyond hope of surgical repair. Not enough passion in his collected works to generate steam in a beer

John Updike: our greatest suburban chic-boutique man of letters. A smug and fatal complacency has stunted his growth beyond hope of surgical repair. Not enough passion in his collected works to generate steam in a beer can. Nevertheless, he is considered by some critics to be America's finest *living* author: Hold a chilled mirror to his lips and you will see, presently, a fine and dewy moisture condensing -- like a faery breath! -- upon the glass.

Passion, Beer, Men

Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.35, RosettaBooks

it will be objected that a constantly increasing population makes resistance and conservation a hopeless battle. this is true. unless a way is found to stabilize the nation's population, the parks can not be saved. or anything else worth a damn. wilderness preservation, like a hundred other good causes, will be forgotten under the overwhelming pressure of a struggle for mere survival and sanity in a completely urbanized, completely industrialized, ever more crowded environment. for my own part i would rather take my chances in a thermonuclear war than live in such a world.

War, Struggle, Survival

Edward Abbey (1968). “Desert Solitaire”, p.52, Simon and Schuster

Edmund Wilson was our greatest American literary critic because he was more than a literary critic: He was a fearless, even radical judge of the society he lived in. (See, for example, _A Piece of My Mind_; _The Cold War and the Income Tax_; the introduction to _Patriotic Gore_.) Our conventional critics cannot forgive him for those scandalous lapses in good taste.

War, Patriotic, Judging

Passion, sexual passion, may lead to marriage, but cannot sustain marriage. The purpose of marriage is the raising of children, for which patience, not passion, is the necessary foundation.

Children, Passion, Foundation

The most striking thing about the rich is the gracious democracy of their manners -- and the crude vulgarity of their way of life.

Democracy, Way, Rich

Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.15, RosettaBooks

The author: an imaginary person who writes real books.

Real, Book, Writing

Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.37, RosettaBooks

It is an author's most solemn obligation to honor truth. If the free and independent writer does not speak truth to power, who will?

Independent, Honor, Doe

Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.36, RosettaBooks

Writers should avoid the academy. When a writer begins to accept pay for talking about words, we know what he will produce soon: nothing but words.

Talking, Pay, Accepting

Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.32, RosettaBooks

Belief in God? An afterlife? I believe in rock: this apodictic rock beneath my feet.

Believe, Feet, Rocks

Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.9, RosettaBooks

In history-as-politics, the 'future' is that vacuum in time waiting to be filled with the antics of statesmen.

Waiting, Vacuums, Antics

Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.17, RosettaBooks

What's the difference between the Lone Ranger and God? There really is a Lone Ranger.

Differences, Atheism, Lone Ranger

Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.10, RosettaBooks

Man's deliberate destruction of his own habitat -- planet Earth -- could serve as a mighty theme for a mighty book worthy of a modern Melville or Tolstoy. But our best fictioneers confine themselves to domestic drama -- soap opera with literary trimmings.

Drama, Book, Men

Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.48, RosettaBooks

The one great gift to humankind from our nuclear physicists has been the nuclear bomb. How can we ever thank them?

Nuclear, Bombs, Physicist

Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.49, RosettaBooks

Pure science is a myth: Both mathematical theoreticians like Albert Einstein and practical crackpots like Henry Ford dealt with different aspects of the same world.

Different, World, Aspect

Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.49, RosettaBooks

The world is what it is, no less and no more, and therein lies its entire and sufficient meaning.

Lying, World, Sufficient

Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.48, RosettaBooks

The world is full of burled and gnarly knobs on which you can hang a metaphysical system. If you must.

Gnarly, World, Metaphysical

Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.9, RosettaBooks

Hierarchical institutions are like giant bulldozers -- obedient to the whim of any fool who takes the controls.

Giants, Fool, Institutions

Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.18, RosettaBooks

In both metaphysics and art, honesty is the best policy. Keep it clean.

Art, Honesty, Clean

Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.11, RosettaBooks

There comes a time in the life of us all when we must lay aside our books or put down our tools and leave our place of work and walk forth on the road to meet the enemy face-to-face. Once and for all and at last

Book, Enemy, Tools

Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.28, RosettaBooks

All power rests on hierarchy: An army is nothing but a well-organized lynch mob.

Army, Hierarchy, Wells

Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.17, RosettaBooks

In the end, for all our differences and conflicts, most women and men share the same food, work, shelter, bed, life, joy, anguish, and fate. We need each other.

Fate, Men, Differences

Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.43, RosettaBooks

The longest journey begins with a single step, not with the turn of an ignition key. That’s the best thing about walking, the journey itself. It doesn’t much matter whether you get where you’re going or not. You’ll get there anyway. Every good hike brings you eventually back home. Right where you started.

Home, Journey, Keys

"The Journey Home: Some Words in Defense of the American West". Book by Edward Abbey ("Walking", p. 205), 1977.

Men love their ideas more than their lives. And the more preposterous the idea, the more eager they are to die for it. And to kill for it.

Fear, Military, War

Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.19, RosettaBooks

Our contemporary Tories prefer the term 'ordered liberty' to 'freedom'. The word 'freedom' scares them; it has too much of a paleolithic ring to it.

Liberty, Scare, Too Much

Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.21, RosettaBooks

One of the pleasant things about small town life is that everyone, whether rich or poor, liked or disliked, has some kind of a role and place in the community. I never felt that living in a city - as I once did for a couple of years.

Couple, Years, Cities

Edward Abbey (2006). “Postcards from Ed: Dispatches and Salvos from an American Iconoclast”

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