Edward Abbey
Edward Abbey
Edward Paul Abbeywas an American author and essayist noted for his advocacy of environmental issues, criticism of public land policies, and anarchist political views. His best-known works include the novel The Monkey Wrench Gang, which has been cited as an inspiration by radical environmental groups, and the non-fiction work Desert Solitaire...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionActivist
Date of Birth29 January 1927
CountryUnited States of America
mind states chastity
Chastity is more a state of mind than of anatomy.
enemy states
I am an enemy of the State. But isn't everyone?
personality enough states
One single act of defiance against power, against the State that seems omnipotent but is not, transforms and transfigures the human personality. At least for a time. For a while. Perhaps that is enough.
self hatred self-hatred
One thing worse than self-hatred is chiggers.
church equal faculty good less social state sum university worthy
In social institutions, the whole is always less than the sum of its parts. There will never be a state as good as its people, or a church worthy of its congregation, or a university equal to its faculty and students.
culture infancy knowing man manhood modern possible proceed senility
In the modern techno-industrial culture, it is possible to proceed from infancy into senility without ever knowing manhood
advocate arch delicate glue lady park perhaps service sort spray
There have been some, even in the Park Service, who advocate spraying Delicate Arch with a fixative of some sort - Elmer's glue perhaps or Lady Clairol Spray Net.
elegant feed foul killer kindred predator sly soaring trembling worms
We are kindred all of us, ... killer and victim, predator and prey, me and the sly coyote, the soaring buzzard, the elegant gopher snake, the trembling cottontail, the foul worms that feed on our entrails, all of them, all of us.
war officers
War? The one war I'd be happy to join is the war against officers.
believe kissing embrace
I believe in nothing that I cannot touch, kiss, embrace.... The rest is only hearsay.
believe listening lasts
The best argument for Christianity is the Gregorian chant. Listening to that music, one can believe anything -- while the music lasts.
nutcrackers reincarnation
Reincarnation? There is such a thing. What could be more Mozartian than the Nutcracker Suite?
distance kids work-out
Simplicity is always a virtue. One kid on a riverbank working out a Stephen Foster tune on his new harmonica heard from the correct esthetic distance projects more magic and power than the entire Vienna Philharmonic and Chorus laboring (once again) through the Mozart Requiem or Bach's B Minor Mass.
book ideas smell
Music endures and ages far better than books. Books, made of words, are unavoidably attached to ideas, events, conflict, and history, but music has the power to transcend time. At least for a time. Palestrina sounds as fresh today as he did in 1555, but Dante, only three centuries older, already smells of the archaic, the medieval, the catacombs.