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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My own best books have not been published. In fact, they've not even been written yet.
Edward Abbey
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Girls: I never wanted them all. Just all the ones I wanted.
Edward Abbey
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Men love their ideas more than their lives. And the more preposterous the idea, the more eager they are to die for it. And to kill for it.
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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I would like to evoke the sense of wonder and magic in the reader but without invoking the mystical, the supernatural or the transcendent.
Edward Abbey
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Men have never loved one another much, for reasons we can readily understand: Man is not a lovable animal.
Edward Abbey
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Music is a savage art, a measured madness.
Edward Abbey
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Motherhood is an essential, difficult, and full-time job. Women who do not wish to be mothers should not have babies.
Edward Abbey
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You long for success? Start at the bottom dig down.
Edward Abbey
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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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The New Age orgy: The flesh was willing but the spirit's weak.
Edward Abbey
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I despise my own nation most. Because I know it best. Because I still love it, suffering from Hope. For me, that's patrotism.
Edward Abbey
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King Arthur and his armored goons of the Round Table functioned as the Politburo of a slave state: Camelot. Of all who have written on the Matter of Arthur, from Malory to White, only Mark Twain understood this. But Mark Twain was a great writer.
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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Cold morning on Aztec Peak Fire Lookout. First, build fire in old stove. Second, start coffee. Then, heat up last night's pork chops and spinach for breakfast. Why not? And why the hell not?
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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Lightning streaks like gunfire through the clouds, volleys of thunder shake the air.
Edward Abbey
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It may be true that my desk here is really 'nothing but' a transient eddy of electrons in the flux of universal process. Nevertheless, I find that it continues to support my feet, my revolver, and my cigars all day long. What happens when my back is turned I don't know. Or much care. That's no concern of mine.
Edward Abbey
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Nothing can excel a few days in jail for giving a young man or woman a quick education in the basis of industrial society.
Edward Abbey
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Tofu and futons. The adepts of Orientalism seem to spend most of their lives reclining. They can't quite summon the energy to crawl up onto a chair. Even their Yogic exercises are carried out in a prone or sitting position.
Edward Abbey