Quote

Music endures and ages far better than books. Books, made of words, are unavoidably attached to ideas, events, conflict, and history, but music has the power to transcend time. At least for a time. Palestrina sounds as fresh today as he did in 1555, but Dante, only three centuries older, already smells of the archaic, the medieval, the catacombs.

Edward Abbey

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Edward Abbey
Age: 62 †
Born: 1927
Born: January 29
Died: 1989
Died: March 14
Author
Environmentalist
Essayist
Novelist
Philosopher
Screenwriter
Writer
Edward Paul Abbey
Music
Books
Smell
Smells
Ideas
Age
Endure
Transcend
Better
Sound
Older
Medieval
Book
Words
Conflict
Attached
Catacombs
Made
History
Events
Centuries
Unavoidably
Time
Three
Already
Ages
Archaic
Power
Century
Fresh
Dante
Today
Least
Sounds
Endures

More quotes by Edward Abbey

Image
Recorded history is largely an account of the crimes and disasters committed by banal little men at the levers of imperial machines.
Edward Abbey
Image
Wealth should come like manna from heaven, unearned and uncalled for. Money should be like grace -- a gift. It is not worth sweating and scheming for.
Edward Abbey
Image
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
Image
How can I be so evil? It ain't easy.
Edward Abbey
Image
Motherhood is an essential, difficult, and full-time job. Women who do not wish to be mothers should not have babies.
Edward Abbey
Image
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
Image
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
Image
The ideal kitchen-sink novel: Throw in everything but the kitchen sink. Then add the kitchen sink.
Edward Abbey
Image
Apuleius married a rich widow, then wrote _The Golden Ass_.
Edward Abbey
Image
May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds.
Edward Abbey
Image
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
Image
You can't belay a man who's falling in love.
Edward Abbey
Image
The most common form of terrorism in the U.S.A. is that carried on by bulldozers and chain saws.
Edward Abbey
Image
Why this cult of wilderness?... because we like the taste of freedom because we like the smell of danger.
Edward Abbey
Image
Once upon a time, I dreamed of becoming a great man. Later, a good man. Now, finally, I find it difficult enough and honor enough to be -- a man.
Edward Abbey
Image
In writing, fidelity to fact leads eventually to the poetry of truth.
Edward Abbey
Image
There's nothing so obscene and depressing as an American Christmas.
Edward Abbey
Image
A life without tragedy would not be worth living.
Edward Abbey
Image
Writing on the wall: Will trade three blind crabs for two with no teeth.
Edward Abbey
Image
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