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I thought of the wilderness we had left behind us, open to sea and sky, joyous in its plenitude and simplicity, perfect yet vulnerable, unaware of what is coming, defended by nothing, guarded by no one.

Edward Abbey

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Edward Abbey
Age: 62 †
Born: 1927
Born: January 29
Died: 1989
Died: March 14
Author
Environmentalist
Essayist
Novelist
Philosopher
Screenwriter
Writer
Edward Paul Abbey
Vulnerable
Perfect
Left
Simplicity
Plenitude
Thought
Sky
Defended
Nothing
Sea
Unaware
Behinds
Guarded
Behind
Joyous
Coming
Wilderness
Open

More quotes by Edward Abbey

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Our suicidal poets (Plath, Berryman, Lowell, Jarrell, et al.) spent too much of their lives inside rooms and classrooms when they should have been trudging up mountains, slogging through swamps, rowing down rivers. The indoor life is the next best thing to premature burial.
Edward Abbey
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We are slaves in the sense that we depend for our daily survival upon an expand-or-expire agro-industrial empire—a crackpot machine—that the specialists cannot comprehend and the managers cannot manage. Which is, furthermore, devouring world resources at an exponential rate. We are, most of us, dependent employees. …Edward Abbey (1927-1989)
Edward Abbey
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Men come and go, cities rise and fall, whole civilizations appear and disappear-the earth remains, slightly modified. The earth remains, and the heartbreaking beauty where there are no hearts to break....I sometimes choose to think, no doubt perversely, that man is a dream, thought an illusion, and only rock is real. Rock and sun.
Edward Abbey
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My sole literary ambition is to write one good novel, then retire to my hut in the desert, assume the lotus position, compose my mind and senses, and sink into meditation, contemplating my novel.
Edward Abbey
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My books always make the best-seller lists in Wolf Hole, Arizona, and Hanksville, Utah.
Edward Abbey
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The best people, like the best wines, come from the hills.
Edward Abbey
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This is the most beautiful place on Earth. There are many such places. Every man, every woman, carries in heart and mind the image of the ideal place, the right place, the one true home, known or unknown, actual or visionary.
Edward Abbey
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Why this cult of wilderness?... because we like the taste of freedom because we like the smell of danger.
Edward Abbey
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I've never yet read a review of one of my own books that I couldn't have written much better myself.
Edward Abbey
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Belief? What do I believe in? I believe in sun. In rock. In the dogma of the sun and the doctrine of the rock. I believe in blood, fire, woman, rivers, eagles, storm, drums, flutes, banjos, and broom-tailed horses.
Edward Abbey
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The most common form of terrorism in the U.S.A. is that carried on by bulldozers and chain saws.
Edward Abbey
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If, as some say, evil lies in the hearts and not the institutions of men, then there's hardly a distinction worth making between, say, Hitler's Germany and Rebecca's Sunnybrook Farm.
Edward Abbey
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In the dog-eat-dog economy, the Doberman is boss.
Edward Abbey
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I believe that there is a kind of poetry, even a kind of truth, in simple fact.
Edward Abbey
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The industrial way of life leads to the industrial way of death. From Shiloh to Dachau, from Antietam to Stalingrad, from Hiroshima to Vietnam and Afghanistan, the great specialty of industry and technology has been the mass production of human corpses.
Edward Abbey
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Love implies anger. The man who is angered by nothing cares about nothing.
Edward Abbey
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Mexico: where life is cheap, death is rich, and the buzzards are never unhappy.
Edward Abbey
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In everything but brains and brawn, women are vastly superior to men. A different race.
Edward Abbey
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In writing, fidelity to fact leads eventually to the poetry of truth.
Edward Abbey
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What our economists call a depressed area almost always turns out to be a cleaner, freer, more livable place than most.
Edward Abbey