American author (1927-1989)
A cowboy is a hired hand on the middle of a horse contemplating the hind end of a cow.
EDWARD ABBEY
A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (Vox Clamantis in Deserto)
When the biggest, richest, glassiest buildings in town are the banks, you know that town's in trouble.
EDWARD ABBEY
A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (Vox Clamantis in Deserto)
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
The earth will survive our most ingenious folly.
EDWARD ABBEY
"Shadows from the Big Woods", The Journey Home
The best cure for the ills of democracy is more democracy.
EDWARD ABBEY
A Voice Crying in the Wilderness
One man alone can be pretty dumb sometimes, but for real bona fide stupidity, there ain't nothing can beat teamwork.
EDWARD ABBEY
The Monkey Wrench Gang
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
Nothing could be older than the daily news, nothing deader than yesterday's newspaper.
EDWARD ABBEY
A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (Vox Clamantis in Deserto)
No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets.
EDWARD ABBEY
A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (Vox Clamantis in Deserto)
I'm a humanist; I'd rather kill a man than a snake.
EDWARD ABBEY
"Serpents of Paradise", Desert Solitaire
I love your letters. How far is that from saying I love you? Well--about a mile. Two miles.
EDWARD ABBEY
The Serpents of Paradise
Civilization, like an airplane in flight, survives only as it keeps going forward.
EDWARD ABBEY
A Voice Crying in the Wilderness
Capitalism: Nothing so mean could be right. Greed is the ugliest of the capital sins.
EDWARD ABBEY
A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (Vox Clamantis in Deserto)
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
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
Grab a woman. Help the movement. Liberate a woman tonight. You'll get stale out here in the woods, living like a bear. Your balls will shrink, your tongue grow stiff and heavy. Your mind will wither away. Whatever became of William Gatlin? Went mad flogging his bloody duff.
EDWARD ABBEY
The Serpents of Paradise
God is a sound people make when they're too tired to think anymore.
EDWARD ABBEY
A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (Vox Clamantis in Deserto)
Do not burn yourselves out. Be as I am -- a reluctant enthusiast ... a part-time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure.
EDWARD ABBEY
attributed, Saving Nature's Legacy
Contempt for animal life leads to contempt for human life.
EDWARD ABBEY
One Life at a Time, Please
Beyond the wall of the unreal city ... there is another world waiting for you. It is the old true world of the deserts, the mountains, the forests, the islands, the shores, the open plains. Go there. Be there. Walk gently and quietly deep within it.
EDWARD ABBEY
Beyond the Wall: Essays from the Outside