Quotes from Barry Lopez

People think that if you've written a book and somebody's given you a pat on the back then, you know, it's all - you're all settled, you know? You're going to be fine. I know that if I'm not confused, and really afraid, my work isn't going to be any good.

One of the great dreams of man must be to find some place between the extremes of nature and civilization where it is possible to live without regret.

The land is like poetry: it is inexplicably coherent, it is transcendent in its meaning, and it has the power to elevate a consideration of human life.

It is the imagination that gives shape to the universe.

I know of no restorative of heart, body, and soul more effective against hopelessness than the restoration of the Earth.

You continue to live them out, making your life a worthy expression of leaning into the light.

There are simply no answers to some of the great pressing questions.

We cannot, of course, save the World because we do not have authority over its parts. We can serve the world though. That is everyone's calling, to lead a life that helps.

If there is a stage at which an individual life becomes truly adult, it must be when one grasps the irony in its unfolding and accepts responsibility for a life lived in the midst of such paradox.

One must live in the middle of contradiction, because if all contradiction were eliminated at once life would collapse.

My function as a writer is to provide an atmosphere in which people can think wisely about what we're doing on this planet.

To inquire into the intricacies of a distant landscape, then, is to provoke thoughts about one's own interior landscape, and the familiar landscapes of memory. The land urges us to come around to an understanding of ourselves.

How is one to live a moral and compassionate existence when one finds darkness not only in one's culture but within oneself? There are simply no answers to some of the great pressing questions. You continue to live them out, making your life a worthy expression of leaning into the light.

We simply do not understand our place in the universe and have not the courage to admit it.

One of the great dreams of man must be to find some place between the extremes of nature and civilization where it is possible to live without regret.

Everything is held together with stories. That is all that is holding us together, stories and compassion.

Remember on this one thing, said Badger. The stories people tell have a way of taking care of them. If stories come to you, care for them. And learn to give them away where they are needed. Sometimes a person needs a story more than food to stay alive. That is why we put these stories in each other's memories. This is how people care for themselves.

real beauty is so deep you have to move into darkness to understand it.

No culture has yet solved the dilemma each has faced with the growth of a conscious mind: how to live a moral and compassionate existence when one is fully aware of the blood, the horror inherent in all life, when one finds darkness not only in one's own culture but within oneself.

Sometimes a person needs a story more than food to stay alive.

I lay there knowing something eerie ties us to the world of animals. Sometimes the animals pull you backward into it. You share hunger and fear with them like salt in blood.

Would the last animal, eating garbage and living on the last scrap of land, his mate dead, would he still forgive you?

Over the years, one comes to measure a place, too, not just for the beauty it may give, the balminess of its breezes, the insouciance and relaxation it encourages, the sublime pleasures it offers, but for what it teaches. The way in which it alters our perception of the human. It is not so much that you want to return to indifferent or difficult places, but that you want to not forget.

For so many centuries, the exchange of gifts has held us together. It has made it possible to bridge the abyss where language struggles.