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I have found through trial and error that I work best under duress. In fact I work only under duress.

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
Work
Trial
Error
Trials
Errors
Fact
Facts
Found
Best
Duress

More quotes by 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
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Guns don't kill people people kill people. Of course, people with guns kill more people. But that's only natural. It's hard. But it's fair.
Edward Abbey
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Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit.
Edward Abbey
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Life is too short for grief. Or regret. Or bullshit.
Edward Abbey
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Proust again: One can only wish that a man with such powers of total recall had led a less tedious life, moved among somewhat livelier circles.
Edward Abbey
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Chastity is more a state of mind than of anatomy.
Edward Abbey
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If we had the power of ten Shakespeares or a dozen Mozarts, we could not produce anything half so marvelous as one ordinary human child.
Edward Abbey
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We judge individual man and women as we do nations and races -- by the character of their achievement and by their achievement of character.
Edward Abbey
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It is not the writer's task to answer questions but to question answers. To be impertinent, insolent, and, if necessary, subversive.
Edward Abbey
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I am happy to be a regional writer. My region is the American West, old Mexico, West Virginia, New York, Europe, Australia, the human heart, and the male groin.
Edward Abbey
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As war and government prove, insanity is the most contagious of diseases.
Edward Abbey
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In the afternoon I watch the clouds drift past the bald peak of Mount Tukuhnikivats. (Someone has to do it.)
Edward Abbey
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Appearance versus reality? Appearance is reality, God damn it!
Edward Abbey
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In the modern world, all literary art is necessarily political -- especially that which pretends not to be.
Edward Abbey
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The desert wears... a veil of mystery. Motionless and silent it evokes in us an elusive hint of something unknown, unknowable, about to be revealed. Since the desert does not act it seems to be waiting -- but waiting for what?
Edward Abbey
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When guns are outlawed, only the Government will have guns. The Government - and a few outlaws. If that happens, you can count me among the outlaws.
Edward Abbey
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A society that feels itself too poor to afford the preservation of wilderness is not worthy of the name civilization.
Edward Abbey
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When the biggest, richest, glassiest buildings in town are the banks, you know that town's in trouble.
Edward Abbey
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It's all still there in heart and soul. The walk, the hills, the sky, the solitary pain and pleasure-they will grow larger, sweeter, lovelier in the days and years to come.
Edward Abbey
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Mexico: where life is cheap, death is rich, and the buzzards are never unhappy.
Edward Abbey