American author (1927-1989)
Our culture runs on coffee and gasoline, the first often tasting like the second.
EDWARD ABBEY
Down the River
The distrust of wit is the beginning of tyranny.
EDWARD ABBEY
A Voice Crying in the Wilderness
The earth will survive our most ingenious folly.
EDWARD ABBEY
"Shadows from the Big Woods", The Journey Home
The most attractive feature of Alaska, I say, is its small, insignificant human population.
EDWARD ABBEY
Beyond the Wall: Essays from the Outside
There are some good things to be said about walking. Not many, but some. Walking takes longer, for example, than any other known form of locomotion except crawling. Thus it stretches time and prolongs life.
EDWARD ABBEY
"Walking", The Journey Home
We're all undesirable elements from somebody's point of view.
EDWARD ABBEY
Abbey's Road
When I write "paradise" I mean not only apple trees and golden women but also scorpions and tarantulas and flies, rattlesnakes and Gila monsters, sandstorms, volcanoes and earthquakes, bacteria and bear, cactus, yucca, bladderweed, ocotillo and mesquite, flash floods and quicksand, and yes -- disease and death and the rotting of flesh.
EDWARD ABBEY
"Down the River", Desert Solitaire
When the biggest, richest, glassiest buildings in town are the banks, you know that town's in trouble.
EDWARD ABBEY
A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (Vox Clamantis in Deserto)
All gold is fool's gold.
EDWARD ABBEY
A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (Vox Clamantis in Deserto)
All living things on earth are kindred.
EDWARD ABBEY
"Serpents of Paradise", Desert Solitaire
Capitalism: Nothing so mean could be right. Greed is the ugliest of the capital sins.
EDWARD ABBEY
A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (Vox Clamantis in Deserto)
Do not burn yourselves out. Be as I am -- a reluctant enthusiast ... a part-time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure.
EDWARD ABBEY
attributed, Saving Nature's Legacy
Each thing in its way, when true to its own character, is equally beautiful.
EDWARD ABBEY
"Cliffrose and Bayonets", Desert Solitaire
God is a sound people make when they're too tired to think anymore.
EDWARD ABBEY
A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (Vox Clamantis in Deserto)
Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.
EDWARD ABBEY
The Journey Home
Guns don't kill people; people kill people. Of course, people with guns kill more people. But that's only natural. It's hard. But it's fair.
EDWARD ABBEY
Abbey's Road
I love your letters. How far is that from saying I love you? Well--about a mile. Two miles.
EDWARD ABBEY
The Serpents of Paradise
I try to think of a favorite among my arid-country flowers. But I love them all. How could we be true to one without being false to all the others?
EDWARD ABBEY
Beyond the Wall: Essays from the Outside
I'm a humanist; I'd rather kill a man than a snake.
EDWARD ABBEY
"Serpents of Paradise", Desert Solitaire
In the land of bleating sheep and braying jackasses, one brave and honest man is bound to create a scandal.
EDWARD ABBEY
Postcards from Ed: Dispatches and Salvos from an American Iconoclast