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
mother daughter opportunity
A mother and daughter are an edge. Edges are ecotones, transitional zones, places of danger or opportunity. House-dwelling tension. When I stand on the edge of the land and sea, I feel this tension, this fluid line of transition. High tide. Low tide. It is the sea's reach and retreat that reminds me we have been human for only a very short time.
believe shoes red
I believe every woman should own at least one pair of red shoes.
thinking matter speak
Find something that matters deeply to you and pursue it. Question. Stand. Speak. Act. Make us uncomfortable. Make us think.
fall writing sentimental
Good writing must stay open to the questions and not fall prey to the pull of a polemic, otherwise, words simply become predictable, sentimental, and stale.
country real land
Our family has made its livelihood from the land, digging trenches for hundreds of miles cross-country. You could say this is a real paradox, to destroy the land, yet love it at the same time. This is a typical story of Westerners, how we build community through change.
mind attention opinion
It is where we embrace our questions. . . . Can we listen with our whole beings, not just our minds, and offer our attention rather than our opinions?
art creativity survival
Creativity ignited a spark. In that moment, I saw that art is not peripheral, beauty is not optional, but a strategy for survival.
art teaching land
Tortoise steps, slow steps, four steps like a tank with a tail dragging in the sand. Tortoise steps, land based, land locked, dusty like the desert tortoise herself, fenced in, a prisoner on her own reservation -- teaching us the slow art of revolutionary patience.
people mind earth
People talk about medium. What is your medium? My medium as a writer has been dirt, clay, sand--what I could touch, hold, stand on, and stand for--Earth. My medium has been Earth. Earth in correspondence with my mind.
country real america
If we fail in this country, it is because we are too timid. If we lose our way in America, it is because we are too complacent. We must become conscious to the real threats before us and act creatively, imaginatively, now. We can no longer look to leadership beyond ourselves.
believe home community
I believe a politics of place emerges where we are deeply accountable to our communities, to our neighborhoods, to our home.
believe taken rights
I believe capitalism will eventually be replaced by a communitarian ethic where the rights and care of all beings will be taken into consideration, not just the greed of a corporate few.
home radical commit
Perhaps the most radical act we can commit is to stay home.
lying home thinking
When Pico [Iyer] talks about home being a place of isolation, I think he's right. But it's the paradox. I think that's why I so love Great Salt Lake. Every day when I look out at that lake, I think, "Ah, paradox" - a body of water than no one can drink. It's the liquid lie of the desert. But I think we have those paradoxes within us and certainly the whole idea of home is windswept with paradox.