Quote

Some people write to please, to soothe, to console. Others to provoke, to challenge, to exasperate and infuriate. I've always found the second approach the more pleasing.

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
Others
Provoking
Writing
Challenge
Always
Approach
People
Please
Infuriate
Second
Soothe
Challenges
Provoke
Write
Console
Found
Pleasing

More quotes by Edward Abbey

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Running the big rapids is like sex: half the fun lies in the anticipation. Two thirds of the thrill with the approach. The remainder is only ecstasy-or darkness.
Edward Abbey
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The nuclear bomb took all the fun out of war.
Edward Abbey
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This is the most beautiful place on Earth. There are many such places. Every man, every woman, carries in heart and mind the image of the ideal place, the right place, the one true home, known or unknown, actual or visionary.
Edward Abbey
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Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit.
Edward Abbey
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The developers and entrepreneurs must somehow be taught a new vocabulary of values.
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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My notion of a great novel is something like a five-hundred-page shaggy-dog story, with only the punch line omitted.
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.
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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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Do not burn yourselves out. Be as I am - a reluctant enthusiast... a part-time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure.
Edward Abbey
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I believe that there is a kind of poetry, even a kind of truth, in simple fact.
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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In metaphysics, the notion that earth and all that's on it is a mental construct is the product of people who spend their lives inside rooms. It is an indoor philosophy.
Edward Abbey
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One man alone can be pretty dumb sometimes, but for real bona fide stupidity, there ain't nothing can beat teamwork.
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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I have written much about many good places. But the best places of all, I have never mentioned.
Edward Abbey
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How can I be so evil? It ain't easy.
Edward Abbey
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One of the pleasant things about small town life is that everyone, whether rich or poor, liked or disliked, has some kind of a role and place in the community. I never felt that living in a city - as I once did for a couple of years.
Edward Abbey
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I once sat on the rim of a mesa above the Rio Grande for three days and nights, trying to have a vision. I got hungry and saw God in the form of a beef pie.
Edward Abbey
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I would not sacrifice a single living mesquite tree for any book ever written. One square mile of living desert is worth a hundred 'great books' - and one brave deed is worth a thousand.
Edward Abbey