Quotes from Edward Abbey

Once upon a time, I dreamed of becoming a great man. Later, a good man. Now, finally, I find it difficult enough and honor enough to be -- a man.

The artist in our time has two chief responsibilities: (1) art; and (2) sedition.

There are only two kinds of books -- good books and the others. The good are winnowed from the bad through the democracy of time.

In history-as-politics, the 'future' is that vacuum in time waiting to be filled with the antics of statesmen.

We are preoccupied with time. If we could learn to love space as deeply as we are now obsessed with time, we might discover a new meaning in the phrase 'to live like men.

In the American Southwest, I began a lifelong love affair with a pile of rock.

Love implies anger. The man who is angered by nothing cares about nothing.

God is love? Not bloody likely.

Life is hard? True - but let's love it anyhow, though it breaks every bone in our bodies.

Nature is indifferent to our love, but never unfaithful.

There is science, logic, reason; there is thought verified by experience. And then there is California.

I want my body to help fertilize the growth of a cactus or cliff rose or sagebrush or tree.

"If my decomposing carcass helps nourish the roots of a juniper tree or the wings of a vulture--that is immortality enough for me. And as much as anyone deserves." E.Abbey

Truth is always the enemy of power. And power the enemy of truth.

The rich can buy everything but health, virtue, friendship, wit, good looks, love, pride, intelligence, grace, and, if you need it, happiness.

I despise my own nation most. Because I know it best. Because I still love it, suffering from Hope. For me, that's patrotism.

Except for the scale of the operation, there was nothing unusual about Hitler's massacre of the Jews. Genocide's an old tradition, as human as mother love or cherry pie.

Love flowers best in openness and freedom.

I love America because it is a confused, chaotic mess - and I hope we can keep it this way for at least another thousand years. The permissive society is the free society.

There has never been a day in my life when I was not in love.

Why must love always be accompanied--sooner or later--by sorrow and pain? Why not? Because pure bliss is for pure idiots.

Better a cruel truth than a comfortable delusion.

Truth is merely common sense, say the naive realist. Really? Then where, precisely, is the location of--a rainbow? In the air? In the eye? In between? Or somewhere else?

The world is older and bigger than we are. This is a hard truth for some folks to swallow.