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Most of what we call the classics of world literature suggest artifacts in a wax museum. We have to hire and pay professors to get them read and talked about.

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
Literature
Classics
Call
Museum
Read
Hire
World
Suggest
Museums
Professors
Talked
Pay
Artifacts

More quotes by 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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The very poor are strictly materialistic. It takes money to be a mystic.
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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We judge individual man and women as we do nations and races -- by the character of their achievement and by their achievement of character.
Edward Abbey
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I hate intellectual discussion. When I hear the words 'phenomenology' or 'structuralism', I reach for my buck knife.
Edward Abbey
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Civilization is a youth with a molotov cocktail in his hand. Culture is the Soviet tank or L.A. cop that guns him down.
Edward Abbey
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Chastity is more a state of mind than of anatomy.
Edward Abbey
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Every writer has his favorite coterie of enemies: Mine is the East Coast literati -- those prep school playmates and their Ivy League colleagues.
Edward Abbey
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The sneakiest form of literary subtlety, in a corrupt society, is to speak the plain truth. The critics will not understand you the public will not believe you your fellow writers will shake their heads. Laughter, praise, honors, money, and the love of beautiful girls will be your only reward.
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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I would never betray a friend to serve a cause. Never reject a friend to help an institution. Great nations may fall in ruin before I would sell a friend to save them.
Edward Abbey
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A man's duty? To be ready -- with rifle or rood -- to defend his home when the showdown comes.
Edward Abbey
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A life without tragedy would not be worth living.
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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In writing, fidelity to fact leads eventually to the poetry of truth.
Edward Abbey
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To the question: Wilderness, who needs it? Doc would say: Because we like the taste of freedom, comrades. Because we like the smell of danger. But, thought Hayduke, what about the smell of fear, Dad?
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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Where all think alike there is little danger of innovation.
Edward Abbey
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One must be reasonable in one's demands on life. For myself, all that I ask is: (1) accurate information (2) coherent knowledge (3) deep understanding (4) infinite loving wisdom (5) no more kidney stones, please.
Edward Abbey
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Proverbs save us the trouble of thinking. What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.
Edward Abbey