Terry Tempest Williams
Terry Tempest Williams
Terry Tempest Williams, is an American author, conservationist and activist. Williams’ writing is rooted in the American West and has been significantly influenced by the arid landscape of her native Utah and its Mormon culture. Her work ranges from issues of ecology and wilderness preservation, to women's health, to exploring our relationship to culture and nature...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth8 September 1955
CountryUnited States of America
mother path would-be
When I said, "I am my mother, but I'm not," I was saying my path would be my own.
literature sorcery stories
This is the sorcery of literature. We are healed by our stories.
writing bird soul
When Emily Dickinson writes, “Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul,” she reminds us, as the birds do, of the liberation and pragmatism of belief.
beautiful art direct-action
Each of us contributes our own piece to the whole, each in our own way, each in our own time with the gifts and talents that are ours. You ask about possible vehicles for change: question, stand, speak, act. Engage in unruly behavior. Disturb the status quo. Take direct action. Commit civil disobedience. Make art. Build community. Dance. Sing. Farm. Cook. Create something beautiful and then give it away. Find your own monkey wrench and use it with the force of love. Sharpen your pencil. Vote.
hurt speak one-woman
When one woman doesn't speak, other women get hurt.
speaks-out land justice
We have to speak out now on behalf of our community and on behalf of the land and say they're the same thing and say No, we are not rolling over and No, this is not a corporate enterprise. This is democracy in the fullest sense and we must have regard and reverence and those are the cornerstones of a just society.
teacher ideas grace
But, today, the idea of faith returns to me. Faith defies logic and propels us beyond hope because it is not attached to our desires. Faith is the centerpiece of a connected life. It allows us to live by the grace of invisible strands. It is a belief in a wisdom superior to our own. Faith becomes a teacher in the absence of fact.
writing would-be pages
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.
enterprise translate
Mythmaking is the evolutionary enterprise of translating truths.
writing witness
I write as a witness to what I have seen.
destruction transformed
Beauty is transformed over time, and not without destruction.
believe body lines
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.
hurt grief water
The sin we commit against each other as women is lack of support. We hurt. We hurt each other. We hide. We project. We become mute or duplicitous, and we fester like boiling water until one day we erupt like a geyser. Do we forget we unravel in grief?
beautiful real perspective
Is this the curse of modernity, to live in a world without judgment, without perspective, no context for understanding or distinguishing what is real and what is imagined, what is manipulated and what is by chance beautiful, what is shadow and what is flesh?