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The only book worth writing is the book that threatens to kill you.

Terry Tempest Williams

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Terry Tempest Williams
Age: 69
Born: 1955
Born: September 8
Author
Essayist
Historian
Memoirist
Poet
Writer
Corona
California
Threatens
Kill
Worth
Book
Writing

More quotes by Terry Tempest Williams

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I come from a culture that embodies the need to convert others to the truth. The Mormon Church has one of the largest missionary programs in the world. That does not interest me.
Terry Tempest Williams
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The pain that we feel when we are making love with someone is that we know it will end. It's that paradoxical response of joy and suffering.
Terry Tempest Williams
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...if we allow ourselves contemplative time in nature-whether it's gardening, going for a walk with the dog, or being in the heart of the southern Utah wilderness-then we can hear the voice of our conscience. If we listen to that voice, it asks us to be conscious. And if we become conscious we choose to live lives of consequence.
Terry Tempest Williams
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Our kinship with Earth must be maintained otherwise, we will find ourselves trapped in the center of our own paved-over souls with no way out.
Terry Tempest Williams
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To withhold words is power. But to share our words with others, openly and honestly, is also power.
Terry Tempest Williams
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I think wherever we are, we can create an atmosphere of openness and trust, where women and those who feel marginalized feel safe to speak the truth of their lives.
Terry Tempest Williams
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We write out of our humanity by writing through our direct experience. That which is most personal is most general, which becomes both our insight and protection as a writers. This is our authority as women, as human beings.
Terry Tempest Williams
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I think the whole idea of home is central to who we are as human beings.
Terry Tempest Williams
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Each horizon, each place holds its own evolutionary power be it the prairie or the plateaus, the mountains or the marshes at Great Salt Lake. For me, this is the nature of peace. Our task is to learn how to see it, feel it, hear it, and care for these places as our own home ground.
Terry Tempest Williams
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There are two important days in a woman's life: the day she is born and the day she finds out why.
Terry Tempest Williams
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It was fascinating listening to this wonderful biologist, Sarah Allen Miller, speak of her relationship to these beings for 20 years.
Terry Tempest Williams
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Stories have the power to create social change and inspire community.
Terry Tempest Williams
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Agitation gives birth to creation.
Terry Tempest Williams
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I take a deep breath and sidestep my fear and begin speaking from the place where beauty and bravery meet--within the chambers of a quivering heart.
Terry Tempest Williams
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There are things within the culture that absolutely enrage me, and for me it is sacred rage. But it's not just peculiar to Mormonism - it's any patriarchy that I think stops, thwarts, or denies our creativity.
Terry Tempest Williams
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There is something very sensual about a letter. The physical contact of pen to paper, the time set aside to focus thoughts, the folding of the paper into the envelope, licking it closed, addressing it, a chosen stamp, and then the release of the letter to the mailbox - are all acts of tenderness.
Terry Tempest Williams
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The only thing I have done religiously in my life is keep a journal. I have hundreds of them, filled with feathers, flowers, photographs, and words - without locks, open on my shelves.
Terry Tempest Williams
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I can't imagine a secular life, a spiritual life, an intellectual life, a physical life. I mean, we would be completely wrought with schizophrenia, wouldn't we?
Terry Tempest Williams
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I think direct political action, civil disobedience, in particular, is something to be taken very seriously.
Terry Tempest Williams
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There are times we have to put our body on the line for what we believe, for the injustices we see even within our own families.
Terry Tempest Williams