Quote

When a writer has done the best that he can do, he should then withdraw from the book-writing business and take up an honest trade like shoe repair, cattle stealing, or screwworm management.

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
Like
Writer
Withdraw
Honest
Repair
Business
Cattle
Best
Shoe
Book
Stealing
Take
Management
Done
Shoes
Writing
Trade

More quotes by Edward Abbey

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Little boys love machines girls adore horses grown-up men and women like to walk.
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The result of this bestial lust is an indiscriminate and promiscuous splaying of all of my energies- wanting all, I accomplish nothing desiring everything, I satisfy nothing and am satisfied by nothing.
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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.
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I'd sooner exchange ideas with the birds on earth than learn to carry on intergalactic communications with some obscure race of humanoids on a satellite planet from the world of Betelgeuse.
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How can I be so evil? It ain't easy.
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In marriage, the occasional catastrophic crisis is easier to manage than the daily routine.
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Without courage, all other virtues are useless.
Edward Abbey
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In social affairs, I'm an optimist. I really do believe that our military- industrial civilization will soon collapse.
Edward Abbey
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Truth is always the enemy of power. And power the enemy of truth.
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May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds.
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What is the purpose of the giant sequoia tree? The purpose of the giant sequoia tree is to provide shade for the tiny titmouse.
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I must confess that I know nothing whatsoever about true underlying reality, never having met any.
Edward Abbey
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How did Haydn and Mozart produce such vast quantities of formally perfect art? They worked from a perfect formula. In music, Beethoven was the Great Emancipator.
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Somewhere in the depths of solitude, beyond wilderness and freedom, lay the trap of madness.
Edward Abbey
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All revolutions have failed? Perhaps. But rebellion for good cause is self- justifying -- a good in itself. Rebellion transforms slaves into human beings, if only for an hour.
Edward Abbey
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Counterpart to the knee-jerk liberal is the new knee-pad conservative, always groveling before the rich and the powerful.
Edward Abbey
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Original sin, the true original sin, is the blind destruction for the sake of greed of this natural paradise which lies all around us-if only we were worthy of it.
Edward Abbey
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Reply to Plato: I seen horses I seen cows I haint never yet seen horsiness nor that there bovinity neither.
Edward Abbey
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Page, Arizona, Shithead Capital of Coconino County: any town with thirteen churches and only four bars has got an incipient social problem. That town is looking for trouble.
Edward Abbey
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Appearance versus reality? Appearance is reality, God damn it!
Edward Abbey