Quote

If there is a stage at which an individual life becomes truly adult, it must be when one grasps the irony in its unfolding and accepts responsibility for a life lived in the midst of such paradox.

Barry Lopez

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Barry Lopez
Age: 75 †
Born: 1945
Born: January 6
Died: 2020
Died: December 25
Author
Photographer
Writer
Port Chester
New York
Barry Holstun Lopez
Accepting
Unfolding
Becomes
Paradox
Stage
Irony
Responsibility
Adult
Individual
Midst
Must
Adults
Life
Lived
Grasps
Truly
Accepts

More quotes by Barry Lopez

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We cannot, of course, save the World because we do not have authority over its parts. We can serve the world though. That is everyone's calling, to lead a life that helps.
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The land retains an identity of its own, still deeper and more subtle than we can know. Our obligation toward it then becomes simple: to approach with an uncalculating mind, with an attitude of regard...be alert for its openings, for that moment when something sacred reveals itself within the mundane, and you know the land knows you are there.
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I know of no restorative of heart, body, and soul more effective against hopelessness than the restoration of the Earth.
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Everything is held together with stories. That is all that is holding us together, stories and compassion.
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You can't learn anything from saguaro cactus, from ocotillo. They are just passing through their roots, their much heralded dormancy in the dry season, these are only illusions of permanence. They know even less than you do.
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It is the imagination that gives shape to the universe.
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The attempt to close the gap between what is known and what IS, is the temptation behind the apple in Genesis.
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The wolf exerts a powerful influence on the human imagination. It takes your stare and turns it back on you
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People think that if you've written a book and somebody's given you a pat on the back then, you know, it's all - you're all settled, you know? You're going to be fine. I know that if I'm not confused, and really afraid, my work isn't going to be any good.
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One of the great dreams of man must be to find some place between the extremes of nature and civilization where it is possible to live without regret.
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If stories come to you, care for them. And learn to give them away where they are needed. Sometimes a person needs a story more than food to stay alive.
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My faith is in my colleagues. And when I meet other writers, journalists, who've been doing this for a long time, trying to make us aware of what it is that we're living in, I put my faith in those people.
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The land urges us to come around to an understanding of ourselves.
Barry Lopez
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In behaving respectfully toward all that the land contains, it is possible to imagine a stifling ignorance falling away from us.
Barry Lopez
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No culture has yet solved the dilemma each has faced with the growth of a conscious mind: how to live a moral and compassionate existence when one is fully aware of the blood, the horror inherent in all life, when one finds darkness not only in one’s own culture but within oneself.
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There are simply no answers to some of the great pressing questions.
Barry Lopez
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It does not demean men to want to be what they imagine the wolf to be, but it does demean them to kill the animal for it.
Barry Lopez
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There's so much to be afraid of.
Barry Lopez
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The interior landscape responds to the character and subtlety of the exterior landscape the shape of the individual mind is affected by the land as it is by genes.
Barry Lopez
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Throughout the centuries we have projected on to the wolf the qualities we most despise and fear in ourselves.
Barry Lopez