American author (1927-1989)
The desert rat carries one distinction like a halo: he has learned to love the kind of country that most people find unlovable.
EDWARD ABBEY
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Beyond the Wall: Essays from the Outside
What our economists call a depressed area almost always turns out to be a cleaner, freer, more livable place than most.
EDWARD ABBEY
A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (Vox Clamantis in Deserto)
When a man's best friend is his dog, that dog has a problem.
EDWARD ABBEY
A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (Vox Clamantis in Deserto)
When I write "paradise" I mean not only apple trees and golden women but also scorpions and tarantulas and flies, rattlesnakes and Gila monsters, sandstorms, volcanoes and earthquakes, bacteria and bear, cactus, yucca, bladderweed, ocotillo and mesquite, flash floods and quicksand, and yes -- disease and death and the rotting of flesh.
EDWARD ABBEY
"Down the River", Desert Solitaire
When the situation is hopeless, there's nothing to worry about.
EDWARD ABBEY
The Monkey Wrench Gang
A pessimist is simply an optimist in full possession of the facts.
EDWARD ABBEY
Hayduke Lives
All living things on earth are kindred.
EDWARD ABBEY
"Serpents of Paradise", Desert Solitaire
Each thing in its way, when true to its own character, is equally beautiful.
EDWARD ABBEY
"Cliffrose and Bayonets", Desert Solitaire
Everyone should learn a manual trade. It's never too late to become an honest person.
EDWARD ABBEY
A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (Vox Clamantis in Deserto)
Guns don't kill people; people kill people. Of course, people with guns kill more people. But that's only natural. It's hard. But it's fair.
EDWARD ABBEY
Abbey's Road
I'd sooner exchange ideas with the birds on earth than learn to carry on intergalactic communications with some obscure race of humanoids on a satellite planet from the world of Betelgeuse.
EDWARD ABBEY
"The First Morning", Desert Solitaire
I'm a humanist; I'd rather kill a man than a snake.
EDWARD ABBEY
"Serpents of Paradise", Desert Solitaire
Money attracts because it gives us the means to command the labor and service and finally the lives of others--human or otherwise.
EDWARD ABBEY
The Serpents of Paradise
The city itself swung slowly toward us silent as a dream. No sign of life but puffs of steam from skyscraper chimneys, the motion of the traffic. The mighty towers stood like tombstones in a graveyard, leaning against the sky and waiting for -- for what? Someday we'll know.
EDWARD ABBEY
"Manhattan Twilight, Hoboken Night", The Journey Home
There is poetry and music in our technology, a beauty as touching as that of eagle, moss campion, raven or yonder limestone boulder shining under the Arctic sun.
EDWARD ABBEY
"Gather at the River", Beyond the Wall: Essays from the Outside
Walking is the only form of transportation in which a man proceeds erect -- like a man -- on his own legs, under his own power. There is immense satisfaction in that.
EDWARD ABBEY
Postcards from Ed
All we have, it seems to me, is the beauty of art and nature and life, and the love which that beauty inspires.
EDWARD ABBEY
"Fire Lookout: Numa Ridge", The Journey Home
Oh! For love, for the painfully nourished, tenderly cherished, sweet frenzies illusion, the known-illusion within the globule of sentimental cynicism. For romantic love, then, I sacrifice honor, decensy, human kindness, charity, honesty, friendship and the future -- all, (ah!) for love!
EDWARD ABBEY
The Serpents of Paradise
Violence, it's as American as pizza pie.
EDWARD ABBEY
The Monkey Wrench Gang
We like the taste of freedom ... because we like the smell of danger.
EDWARD ABBEY
Beyond the Wall: Essays from the Outside