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
choices desert done
most of my wandering in the desert i've done alone. not so much from choice as from necessity - i generally prefer to go into places where no one else wants to go. i find that in contemplating the natural world my pleasure is greater if there are not too many others contemplating it with me, at the same time.
waiting desert hints
The desert wears... a veil of mystery. Motionless and silent it evokes in us an elusive hint of something unknown, unknowable, about to be revealed. Since the desert does not act it seems to be waiting -- but waiting for what?
desert
Why do I live in the desert? Because the desert is the *locus Dei*.
desert intimate draws
What draws us into the desert is the search for something intimate in the remote.
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.
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.
writing police musical
Poor Dimitri Shostakovich: In the Soviet Union, he was condemned as being too radical; in the West, for being too conservative. He could please no one but the musical public. He revenged himself on both by writing a short piece called 'March of the Soviet Police.'
trying
Women: We cannot love them all. But we must try.
believe fidelity being-true
I, too, believe in fidelity. But how can I be true to one woman without being false to all the others?
mind states chastity
Chastity is more a state of mind than of anatomy.
girl rain utah
How to Avoid Pleurisy: Never make love to a girl named Candy on the tailgate of a half-ton Ford pickup during a chill rain in April out on Grandview Point in San Juan County, Utah.
hate people musical
Grand opera is a form of musical entertainment for people who hate music.