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
Terry Tempest Williams quotes about
eye writing world
To me, writing is about how we see. The writers I want to read teach me how to see-see the world differently. In my writing there is no separation between how I observe the world and how I write the world. We write through our eyes. We write through our body. We write out of what we know.
animal water community
We are animal. We are Earth. We are water. We are a community of human beings living on this planet together. And we forget that. We become disconnected, we lose our center point of gravity, that stillness that allows us to listen to life on a deeper level and to meet each other in a fully authentic and present way.
song prayer believe
I pray to the birds. I pray to the birds because I believe they will carry the messages of my heart upward. I pray to them because I believe in their existence, the way their songs begin and end each day—the invocations and benedictions of Earth. I pray to the birds because they remind me of what I love rather than what I fear. And at the end of my prayers, they teach me how to listen.
looks
When one of us says 'look, there is nothing out there,' what we are really saying is, 'I cannot see'.
moon years stronger
Today, I feel stronger, learning to live within the natural cycles of a day and to not expect too much of myself. As women, we hold the moon in our bellies. It is too much to ask to operate on full-moon energy three hundred and sixty-five days a year. I am in a crescent phase.
gestures sacred resistance
The act of civil disobedience is the act of taking our anger and turning it into sacred rage. It is a personal and collective gesture of resistance and insistance.
doors greed abundance
Greed says there is never enough. Abundance says there is more than enough. Greed closes the door behind itself. Abundance opens the door for others.
life women two
There are two important days in a woman's life: the day she is born and the day she finds out why.
persistence community kind
Wherever we are, we can call for and create these kinds of settings for authentic dialogue. This is the seedbed of social change. In a voiced community, we all flourish. But it's not easy. Revolutionary patience and persistence is required. It can be messy, it is unpredictable, and change, especially structural change takes time - time and leadership and the will of an engaged community. What is needed? In a word, courage.
teamwork imagination community
Despair shows us the limit of our imagination. Imaginations shared create collaboration, collaboration creates community, and community inspires social change.
prayer whispering world
The world is holy. We are holy. All life is holy. Daily prayers are delivered on the lips of breaking waves, the whisperings of grasses, the shimmering of leaves.
land intellectual why-we-are-here
It is time for us to take off our masks, to step out from behind our personas - whatever they might be: educators, activists, biologists, geologists, writers, farmers, ranchers, and bureaucrats - and admit we are lovers, engaged in an erotics of place. Loving the land. Honoring its mysteries. Acknowledging, embracing the spirit of place - there is nothing more legitimate and there is nothing more true. That is why we are here. That is why we do what we do. There is nothing intellectual about it. We love the land. It is a primal affair.
writing thinking letters
Pico Iyer describes his writing as "intimate letters to a stranger," and I think that is what the writing process is. It begins with a question, and then you follow this path of exploration.
dog rain cry
If you take away all the prairie dogs, there will be no one to cry for the rain.