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In America, as elsewhere, the general irritability level keeps rising.

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
Keeps
General
Level
Levels
America
Irritability
Elsewhere
Rising

More quotes by Edward Abbey

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In marriage, the occasional catastrophic crisis is easier to manage than the daily routine.
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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Why is it that the destruction of something created by humans is called vandalism, yet the destruction of something created by God is called development?
Edward Abbey
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Nearly all of Latin America, from Chile to Mexico, is one long rack of torture. Financed, equipped, and refined by the U.S. government.
Edward Abbey
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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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Instant communication is not communication at all but merely a frantic, trivial, nerve-wracking bombardment of cliches, threats, fads, fashions, gibberish and advertising.
Edward Abbey
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Paradise is the here and now, the actual, tangible, dogmatically real Earth on which we stand. Yes, God bless America, the Earth upon which we stand.
Edward Abbey
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Wilderness begins in the human mind.
Edward Abbey
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Liberty cannot be guaranteed by law. Nor by any thing else except the resolution of free citizens to defend their liberties.
Edward Abbey
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Government: If you refuse to pay unjust taxes, your property will be confiscated. If you attempt to defend your property, you will be arrested. If you resist arrest, you will be clubbed. If you defend yourself against clubbing, you will be shot dead. These procedures are known as the Rule of Law.
Edward Abbey
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I would prefer to write about everything what else is there? But one must be selective.
Edward Abbey
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The author: an imaginary person who writes real books.
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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The artist's job? To be a miracle worker: make the blind see, the dull feel, the dead to live.
Edward Abbey
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All governments require enemy governments.
Edward Abbey
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In the dog-eat-dog economy, the Doberman is boss.
Edward Abbey
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Trout fishing. One must be a stickler for proper form. Use nothing but #4 blasting caps, or a hand grenade, if handy, or at a pool well-lined with stone, one blast from a .44 magnum will bring a few stunned brookies quietly to the surface.
Edward Abbey
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The city itself swung slowly toward us silent as a dream. No sign of life but puffs of steam from skyscraper chimneys, the motion of the traffic. The mighty towers stood like tombstones in a graveyard, leaning against the sky and waiting for -- for what? Someday we'll know.
Edward Abbey
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Is there a God? Who knows? Is there an angry unicorn on the dark side of the moon?
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