Quote

I don't set boundaries for myself when I am writing if I did, I would be paralyzed from the start, unable to write a word on the page.

Terry Tempest Williams

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Terry Tempest Williams
Age: 69
Born: 1955
Born: September 8
Author
Essayist
Historian
Memoirist
Poet
Writer
Corona
California
Boundaries
Page
Pages
Start
Word
Write
Writing
Paralyzed
Would
Unable

More quotes by Terry Tempest Williams

Image
For me, it always comes back to the land, respecting the land, the wildlife, the plants, the rivers, mountains, and deserts, the absolute essential bedrock of our lives. This is the source of where my power lies, the source of where all our power lies.
Terry Tempest Williams
Image
Our correspondences have wings - paper birds that fly from my house to yours - flocks of ideas crisscrossing the country. Once opened, a connection is made. We are not alone in the world.
Terry Tempest Williams
Image
I can only say that I believe the Mormon Church is changing because the people inside the church are changing, particularly, the women. And if the women in the Mormon Church are changing, that means the men in the Mormon Church will change - slowly, reluctantly to be sure, but inevitably.
Terry Tempest Williams
Image
I wonder about silence. Also about darkness. I love the idea that city lights are a conspiracy against higher thoughts.
Terry Tempest Williams
Image
I wonder how, among the Fremont, mothers and daughters shared their world. Did they walk side by side along the lake edge? What stories did they tell while weaving strips of bulrush into baskets? How did daughters bury their mothers and exercise their grief? What were the secret rituals of women? I feel certain they must have been tied to birds.
Terry Tempest Williams
Image
We mask our needs as the needs of others.
Terry Tempest Williams
Image
This is the sorcery of literature. We are healed by our stories.
Terry Tempest Williams
Image
The Japanese have a word - aware - which, in my understanding is, again, that full range - both the joy and the sorrow of our life. One does not exist without the other. And I really feel that.
Terry Tempest Williams
Image
I think that the only thing that can bring us into a place of fullness is being out in the land with other. Then we remember where the source of our power lies.
Terry Tempest Williams
Image
Democracy is an insecure landscape.
Terry Tempest Williams
Image
...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
Image
I am slowly, painfully discovering that my refuge is not found in my mother, my grandmother, of even the birds of Bear River. My refuge exists in my capacity to love. If I can learn to love death then I can begin to find refuge in change.
Terry Tempest Williams
Image
My body is a compass - and it does not lie.
Terry Tempest Williams
Image
I have a sequence to my creative life. In spring and fall, I am above ground and commit to community. In the summer, I'm outside. It is a time for family. And in the winter, I am underground. Home. This is when I do my work as a writer - in hibernation. I write with the bears.
Terry Tempest Williams
Image
WHAT ARE THE CONSEQUENCES when we go against our instincts? What are the consequences of not speaking out? What are the consequences of guilt, shame, and doubt?
Terry Tempest Williams
Image
To hear something asks very little of us. To listen places our entire being on notice.
Terry Tempest Williams
Image
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
Image
The Eyes of the Future are looking back at us and they are praying for us to see beyond our own time.
Terry Tempest Williams
Image
Today, I feel stronger, learning to live within the natural cycles of a day and to not expect too much of myself. As women, we hold the moon in our bellies. It is too much to ask to operate on full-moon energy three hundred and sixty-five days a year. I am in a crescent phase.
Terry Tempest Williams
Image
Faith is not about finding meaning in the world, there may be no such thing -- faith is the belief in our capacity to create meaningful lives.
Terry Tempest Williams