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Literary critics, like a herd of cows or a school of fish, always face in the same direction, obeying that love for unity that every critic requires.

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
Love
Requires
Obeying
Like
Direction
Herds
Critics
Critic
Face
Cows
Faces
Literary
School
Fish
Every
Fishes
Always
Unity
Herd

More quotes by Edward Abbey

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My computer tells me that in twenty-five years there will be no more computers.
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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James Joyce buried himself in his great work. _Finnegan's Wake_ is his monument and his tombstone. A dead end.
Edward Abbey
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Do I believe in ghosts? I believe in the ghosts that haunt the human mind.
Edward Abbey
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The earth, like the sun, like the air, belongs to everyone - and to no one.
Edward Abbey
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I wait. Now the night flows back, the mighty stillness embraces and includes me I can see the stars again and the world of starlight. I am twenty miles or more from the nearest fellow human, but instead of loneliness I feel loveliness. Loveliness and a quiet exultation.
Edward Abbey
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For women, the sexual act is a means to a higher end. For a man, it is an end in itself.
Edward Abbey
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When I hear the word 'culture', I reach for my checkbook.
Edward Abbey
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It is an author's most solemn obligation to honor truth. If the free and independent writer does not speak truth to power, who will?
Edward Abbey
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I was once invited to take part in a heroic, possibly fatal enterprise, but I declined, mainly on account of sloth.
Edward Abbey
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Ah yes, the head is full of books. The hard part is to force them down through the bloodstream and out through the fingers.
Edward Abbey
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The sense of justice springs from self-respect both are coeval with our birth. Children are born with an innate sense of justice it usually takes twelve years of public schooling and four more years of college to beat it out of them.
Edward Abbey
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A leader leads from in front, by the power of example. A ruler pushes from behind, by means of the club, the whip, the power of fear.
Edward Abbey
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Life is hard? True - but let's love it anyhow, though it breaks every bone in our bodies.
Edward Abbey
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The tank, the B-52, the fighter-bomber, the state-controlled police and military are the weapons of dictatorship. The rifle is the weapon of democracy. Not for nothing was the revolver called an equalizer.
Edward Abbey
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Whatever we cannot easily understand we call God this saves much wear and tear on the brain tissues.
Edward Abbey
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To be alive is to take risks to be always safe and secure is death.
Edward Abbey
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My loyalties will not be bound by national borders, or confined in time by one nation's history, or limited in the spiritual dimension by one language and culture. I pledge my allegiance to the damned human race, and my everlasting love to the green hills of Earth, and my intimations of glory to the singing stars, to the very end of space and time.
Edward Abbey
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The knowledge that refuge is available, when and if needed, makes the silent inferno of the desert more easily bearable. Mountains complement desert as desert complements city, as wilderness complements and completes civilization.
Edward Abbey
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To be everywhere at once is to be nowhere forever, if you ask me.
Edward Abbey