Quote

You run into people who want to write poetry who don't want to read anything in the tradition. That's like wanting to be a builder but not finding out what different kinds of wood you use.

Gary Snyder

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Gary Snyder
Age: 94
Born: 1930
Born: May 8
Environmentalist
Poet
Trade Unionist
Translator
Writer
San Francisco County
California
Gary Snyder
Write
Woods
Running
Findings
Anything
Finding
Different
Kinds
Writing
Tradition
Kind
Poetry
Builder
Like
Read
Wood
People
Use
Wanting

More quotes by Gary Snyder

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When making an axe handle the pattern is not far off.
Gary Snyder
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There are those who love to get dirty and fix things. They drink coffee at dawn, beer after work. And those who stay clean, just appreciate things. At breakfast they have milk and juice at night. There are those who do both, they drink tea.
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Zen aims at freedom but its practice is disciplined.
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Nature is not a place to visit. It is home.
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Thought is just an apprehension of touch.
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I try to hold both history and wilderness in mind, that my poems may the true measure of things and stand against the unbalance and ignorance of our times.
Gary Snyder
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Having a place means that you know what a place means...what it means in a storied sense of myth, character and presence but also in an ecological sense...Integrating native consciousness with mythic consciousness
Gary Snyder
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For those who can, one of the things to do is not to move. To stay put. That doesn't mean don't travel it means have a place and get involved in what can be done in that place. That's the only way we're going to have a representative democracy in America. Nobody stays anywhere long enough to take responsibility for a local community.
Gary Snyder
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I don't know of any other city where you can walk through so many culturally diverse neighborhoods, and you're never out of sight of the wild hills. Nature is very close here.
Gary Snyder
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After weeks of watching the roof leak I fixed it tonight by moving a single board
Gary Snyder
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When the mind is exhausted of images, it invents its own.
Gary Snyder
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Clambering up the Cold Mountain path, The Cold Mountain trail goes on and on: The long gorge choked with scree and boulders, The wide creek, the mist-blurred grass. The moss is slippery, though there's been no rain The pine sings, but there's no wind. Who can leap the world's ties And sit with me among the white clouds?
Gary Snyder
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Find your place on the planet. Dig in, and take responsibility from there.
Gary Snyder
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I never find words right away. Poems for me always begin with images and rhythms, shapes, feelings, forms, dances in the back of my mind.
Gary Snyder
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Revolutionary consciousness is to be found among the most ruthlessly exploited masses: animals, trees, water, air, grasses
Gary Snyder
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I hold the most archaic values on earth ... the fertility of the soul, the magic of the animals, the power-vision in solitude.... the love and ecstasy of the dance, the common work of the tribe.
Gary Snyder
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The best thing you can do for the planet is to stay home.
Gary Snyder
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Today we are aware as never before of the plurality of human life-styles and possibilities, while at the same time being tied, like in an old silent movie, to a runaway locomotive rushing headlong toward a very singular catastrophe
Gary Snyder
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The mercy of the West has been social revolution the mercy of the East has been individual insight into the basic self/void.
Gary Snyder
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What is any religion? A little ritual, a little superstition, and some magic. It's not a strictly spiritual affair it has psychological roles to fulfill. You might not want it to be a religion based on your own experience but that's like wanting to clean up your dreams
Gary Snyder