Quotes from Terry Tempest Williams

I trace my genealogy back to the land. Human and wild, I can see myself whole, not isolated but integrated in time and place. Our genetic makeup is not so different from the collared lizard, the canyon wren now calling, or the great horned owl who watches from the cottonwood near the creek. Mountain lion is as mysterious a creature as any soul I know. Is not the tissue of family always a movement between harmony and distance?

Wilderness holds an original presence giving expression to that which we lack, the losses we long to recover, the absences we seek to fill. Wilderness revives the memory of unity. Through its protection we can find faith in our humanity.

There is comfort in keeping what is sacred inside us not as a secret, but as a prayer.

Words empower us, move us beyond our suffering and set us free. This is the sorcery of literature. We are healed by our stories.

I have inherited a belief in community, the promise that a gathering of the spirit can both create and change culture.

Sorrow has a voice. It is the cold scream of silence turned inward.

Literature was life, and reading became an open door to a world beyond the familiar.

words are much stronger than I am.

We spoke of death, not in a morbid way, but in a pragmatic one. It will come, Dad said. But for now, heaven is here.

Writing becomes an act of compassion toward life, the life we so often refuse to see because if we look too closely or feel too deeply, there may be no end to our suffering. But words empower us, move us beyond our suffering, and set us free. This is the sorcery of literature. We are healed by our stories.

Here is the woman who had seriously considered taking LSD under the supervision of a medical doctor so she could have a mind-altering experience, who had read herself straight out of Mormonism and into Eastern religious thought--but refused to replace one dogma with another.

This is what we can promise the future: a legacy of care. That we will be good stewards and not take too much or give back too little, that we will recognize wild nature for what it is, in all its magnificent and complex history - an unfathomable wealth that should be consciously saved, not ruthlessly spent.

We are a tribe of fractured individuals who can now only celebrate remnants of wildness.

John Lilly suggests whales are a culture maintained by oral traditions. Stories. The experience of an individual whale is valuable to the survival of its community. I think of my family stories—Mother's in particular—how much I need them now, how much I will need them later. It has been said when an individual dies, whole worlds die with them. The same could be said of each passing whale.

But what thrilled me most was the fact that millions of meteors burn up every day as they enter our atmosphere. As a result, Earth receives ten tons of dust from outer space. Not only do we take in the world with each breath, we are inhaling the universe. We are made of stardust.

The sin I have committed is the sin of adoption. I have adopted a different set of beliefs from the beliefs I was raised to obey. But this definition of sin over time has become my joy. I do have other gods before me, many, and none are a white elderly man sitting on a gilded throne in heaven. Pronghorn antelope holds authority for me, like a priest.

A pencil is a wand and a weapon. Be careful. Protect yourself. It can be glorious.

These valleys, these rivers- creased, folded, and pushed. What wisdom mountains house. My God- they are Gods. My God has feet of Earth. We are flickering moths in migration.

The legacy of the Wilderness Act is a legacy of care. It is the act of loving beyond ourselves, beyond our own species, beyond our own time. To honor wildlands and wild lives that we may never see, much less understand, is to acknowledge the world does not revolve around us. The Wilderness Act is an act of respect that protects the land and ourselves from our own annihilation.

The scales of equilibrium can be found in wilderness/

Wilderness is the source of what we can imagine and what we cannot- the taproot of consciousness. It will survive us.

The difference between fear and awe is a matter of our eyes adjusting.

These are difficult time, transformative times- times of extreme actions especially within our national parks. Extreme drought. Extreme fires. Extreme development with extreme policy shifts needed in the name of global warming. The world is changing dramatically, both ecologically as well as politically. But I believe our greatest transformation as a species will be spiritual. The word we must include all species.

I believe that spiritual resistance -- the ability to stand firm at the center of our convictions when everything around us asks us to concede, that our capacity to face the harsh measures of a life, comes from the deep quiet of listening to the land, the river the rocks. There is a resonance of humility that has evolved with the earth. It is the best retrieved in solitude amidst the stillness of days in the desert.