Quote

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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Gary Snyder
Age: 94
Born: 1930
Born: May 8
Environmentalist
Poet
Trade Unionist
Translator
Writer
San Francisco County
California
Gary Snyder
Always
Words
Dances
Never
Feelings
Rhythms
Away
Poems
Form
Images
Back
Rhythm
Find
Forms
Right
Shapes
Mind
Begin

More quotes by 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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Being the Stream Meditation is not just a rest or retreat from the turmoil of the stream or the impurity of the world. It is a way of being the stream, so that one can be at home in both the white water and the eddies. Meditation may take one out of the world, but it also puts one totally into it.
Gary Snyder
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Wildness is not just the preservation of the world, it is the world
Gary Snyder
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A great poet does not express his or her self he expresses all of our selves.
Gary Snyder
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Why should the peculiarities of human consciousness be the narrow standard by which other creatures are judged?
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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In the 40,000 year time scale we're all the same people. We're all equally primitive, give or take two or three thousand years here or a hundred years there.
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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All this new stuff goes on top turn it over, turn it over wait and water down from the dark bottom turn it inside out let it spread through Sift down even. Watch it sprout. A mind like compost.
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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When making an axe handle the pattern is not far off.
Gary Snyder
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Knowing where and who are intimately linked.
Gary Snyder
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To work on behalf of the wild is to restore culture
Gary Snyder
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You don't want to be victimized by your lesser talents.
Gary Snyder
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I thought, that day I started, I sure would hate to do this all my life, And dammit, that’s just what I’ve gone and done.
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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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
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Sometime in the last ten years the best brains of the Occident discovered to their amazement that we live in an Environment. This discovery has been forced on us by the realization that we are approaching the limits of something.
Gary Snyder
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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