Quotes from Edward Abbey

Jane Austen: Getting into her books is like getting in bed with a cadaver. Something vital is lacking; namely, life.

As a confirmed melancholic, I can testify that the best and maybe only antidote for melancholia is action. However, like most melancholics, I suffer also from sloth.

Life is unfair. And it's not fair that life is unfair.

Concrete is heavy; iron is hard - but the grass will prevail.

Longevity, like intelligence and good looks and health and strength of character, is largely a matter of genetic heritage. Choose your parents with care.

Homosexuality, like androgyny, might be an instinctive racial response to overpopulation, crowding, and stress. Both flourish when empire reaches its apogee.

It is not death or dying that is tragic, but rather to have existed without fully participating in life- that is the deepest personal tragedy.

Life without music would be an intolerable insult.

I've wrecked and ravaged half my life in the pursuit of women, and I suffer the pangs of about seventeen regrets -- the seventeen who got away.

Mexico: where life is cheap, death is rich, and the buzzards are never unhappy.

It's a fool's life, a rogue's life, and a good life if you keep laughing all the way to the grave.

Our modern industrial economy takes a mountain covered with trees, lakes, running streams and transforms it into a mountain of junk, garbage, slime pits, and debris.

My sole literary ambition is to write one good novel, then retire to my hut in the desert, assume the lotus position, compose my mind and senses, and sink into meditation, contemplating my novel

Charity should be spontaneous. Calculated altruism is an affront.

Society is like a stew. If you don't stir it up every once in a while then a layer of scum floats to the top.

The real work of men was hunting meat. The invention of agriculture was a giant step in the wrong direction, leading to serfdom, cities, and empire. From a race of hunters, artists, warriors, and tamers of horses, we degraded ourselves to what we are now: clerks, functionaries, laborers, entertainers, processors of information

God bless America. Let's save some of it.

The domination of nature leads to the domination of human nature.

Abolition of a woman's right to abortion, when and if she wants it, amounts to compulsory maternity: a form of rape by the State.

When the philosopher's argument becomes tedious, complicated, and opaque, it is usually a sign that he is attempting to prove as true to the intellect what is plainly false to common sense

Baseball is a slow, sluggish game, with frequent and trivial interruptions, offering the spectator many opportunities to reflect at leisure upon the situation on the field: This is what a fan loves most about the game

Baseball serves as a good model for democracy in action: Every player is equally important and each has a chance to be a hero

If guns are outlawed, only the government will have guns. Only the police, the secret police, the military, the hired servants of our rulers. Only the government --and a few outlaws. I intend to be among the outlaws

Walking takes longer... than any other known form of locomotion except crawling. Thus it stretches time and prolongs life. Life is already too short to waste on speed.