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
style sake too-much
Style: There is something in too much verbal felicity (as in Joyce or Nabokov or Borges) that can betray the writer into technique for the sake of technique.
country america nuclear
America My Country: last nation on earth to abolish human slavery; first of all nations to drop the nuclear bomb on our fellow human beings.
events fiction written
It is true that some of my fiction was based on actual events. But the events took place after the fiction was written.
dad fear smell
To the question: Wilderness, who needs it? Doc would say: Because we like the taste of freedom, comrades. Because we like the smell of danger. But, thought Hayduke, what about the smell of fear, Dad?
kissing garden feet
Too many American authors have a servile streak where their backbone should be. Where's our latest Nobel laureate? More than likely you'll find him in the Rose Garden kissing the First Lady's foot.
art soul body
In art as in life, form and subject, body and soul, are one.
play tyrants thrones
Shakespeare wrote great poetry and preposterous plays. Who really cares, for example, which petty tyrant rules Milan? Or who succeeds to the throne of Denmark? Or why the barons ganged up on Richard II?
passion beer men
John Updike: our greatest suburban chic-boutique man of letters. A smug and fatal complacency has stunted his growth beyond hope of surgical repair. Not enough passion in his collected works to generate steam in a beer can. Nevertheless, he is considered by some critics to be America's finest *living* author: Hold a chilled mirror to his lips and you will see, presently, a fine and dewy moisture condensing -- like a faery breath! -- upon the glass.
long bottom
You long for success? Start at the bottom; dig down.
lying heaven kingdoms
Music begins where words leave off. Music expresses the inexpressible. If there is a Kingdom of Heaven, it lies in music.
football team winning
Tee Vee football: one team wins, one team loses -- they tie -- who cares? And why?
heaven grace wealth
Wealth should come like manna from heaven, unearned and uncalled for. Money should be like grace -- a gift. It is not worth sweating and scheming for.
book utah arizona
My books always make the best-seller lists in Wolf Hole, Arizona, and Hanksville, Utah.
war patriotic judging
Edmund Wilson was our greatest American literary critic because he was more than a literary critic: He was a fearless, even radical judge of the society he lived in. (See, for example, _A Piece of My Mind_; _The Cold War and the Income Tax_; the introduction to _Patriotic Gore_.) Our conventional critics cannot forgive him for those scandalous lapses in good taste.