Terry Tempest Williams Quotes - Page 7

The climate change movement is a river overflowing seeping into every nook and cranny.

I am interested and deeply curious about our need for a spiritual life, a life of greater meaning, and how we come to a more ethical view of life within our communities that is more inclusive than exclusive, one that is extended even beyond our own species.

I don't think of myself as an American; I see myself as a human being.

I wonder, What is it to be human? Especially now that we are so urban. How do we remember our connection with place? What is the umbilical cord that roots us to that primal, instinctive, erotic place? Every time I walk to the edge of this continent and feel the sand beneath my feet, feel the seafoam move up my body, I think, "Ah, yes, evolution." It's there, we just forget.

What is evolution if not creative adaptation and the progression of our own souls?

As a writer, I have learned that each time I pick up my pencil I betray someone.

We are wearing coats of trust. When one tells a story this is what happens.

I appreciate all of the unexpected places, internal and external, that my writing has taken me.

Pico Iyer describes his writing as "intimate letters to a stranger," and I think that is what the writing process is. It begins with a question, and then you follow this path of exploration.

To write requires an ego, a belief that what you say matters. Writing also requires an aching curiosity leading you to discover, uncover, what is gnawing at your bones.

These handwritten words in the pages of my journal confirm that from an early age I have experienced each encounter in my life twice: once in the world, and once again on the page.

Not everything is meant for all to hear.

The discipline of writing a memoir comes in the editing. This is where I cut, slash, and burn - where my creative mind is transformed into a ruthless one. No word escapes my scrutiny. It is here where I see what boundaries need to be set.

The pain that we feel when we are making love with someone is that we know it will end. It's that paradoxical response of joy and suffering.

I look at Los Angeles and I ask myself, How can this ever be sustainable? And what are we contributing to that? Because we are all complicit. None of us is without blame. It's so difficult and it's so overwhelming and I think we have to make small choices in our own lives that can loom large collectively.

Sometimes you have to disclaim your country and inhabit another before you can return to your own.

How do we remain faithful to our own spiritual imagination and not betray what we know in our own bodies? The world is holy. We are holy. All life is holy.

I don't set boundaries for myself when I am writing; if I did, I would be paralyzed from the start, unable to write a word on the page.

I accept the Organic Trinity of Mineral, Vegetable, and Animal with as much authority as I accept the Holy Trinity. Both are sacred.

I believe every woman should own at least one pair of red shoes.

We're human, this is our world, and I think we learn that that which is most personal is most general. And so, in a sense, we disappear into this larger world.

memory is the only way home.

How do we create beauty in a broken world? How do we create a view of sustainability in an economy that is crashing? How do we reconfigure our lives, how do we pick up the pieces and create a meaningful life? So, yes, we have a different form of leadership but the questions remain the same.

When we really need to work hard to make sure that these ideas about constructive social change culturally, ecologically and politically, come to pass. And that's only going to happen if people support the leadership, because the same power structures are still in place, and it's not in their best interests to change.

Well, we are Americans. I've always believed that you work with where you are - I am a Mormon woman who was raised on the edge of the Great Salt Lake in the American West in the United States of America. But, by the same token, much of my life has been spent resisting traditional forms of democracy, resisting traditional forms of orthodoxy, be it the United States government or the Mormon Church.