109 Quotes & Sayings By Edward Abbey

Edward Abbey was born in 1927 in New York City. He attended the University of Arizona and then served with the U.S. Air Force in Europe during World War II, where he received a Bronze Star for valor. He graduated from the University of Utah with a degree in anthropology, and was a member of its Department of English from 1947 to 1951 Read more

In 1952, he began his career as a professional writer with a novel about the life of a migrant worker. In 1955, his first collection of essays on writing and travel was published as The Journey Home: Essays, Drawings and Sketches on Writing and Life. From 1956 until his death from cancer on September 21, 1989, Abbey wrote numerous works of nonfiction, including The Monkey Wrench Gang (1968), The Journey Home (1973), Desert Solitaire (1968), The River Running West (1979), and The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill (1984).

His nonfiction writings were always informed by his lifelong love of the outdoors and the land.

1
A man could be a lover and defender of the wilderness without ever in his lifetime leaving the boundaries of asphalt, powerlines, and right-angled surfaces. We need wilderness whether or not we ever set foot in it. We need a refuge even though we may never need to set foot in it. We need the possibility of escape as surely as we need hope; without it the life of the cities would drive all men into crime or drugs or psychoanalysis. . Edward Abbey
2
Philosophy without action is the ruin of the soul. One brave deed is worth a hundred books, a thousand theories, a million words. Now as always we need heroes. And heroines! Down with the passive and the limp. Edward Abbey
3
This sweet virginal primitive land will metaphorically breathe a sigh of relief --like a whisper of wind--when we are all and finally gone and the place and its creations can return to their ancient procedures unobserved and undisturbed by the busy, anxious, brooding consciousness of man. Edward Abbey
Better a cruel truth than a comfortable delusion.
4
Better a cruel truth than a comfortable delusion. Edward Abbey
But it is a writer's duty to write and speak...
5
But it is a writer's duty to write and speak and record the truth, always the truth, no matter whom may be offended. Edward Abbey
6
The novel should tell the truth, as I see the truth, or as the novelist persuades me to see it. And one more demand: I expect the novelist to aspire to improve the world.. As a novelist, I want to be more than one more dog barking at the other dogs barking at me. Not out of any foolish hope that one novelist, or all virtuous novelists in chorus, can make much of a difference for good, except in the long run, but out of the need to prevent the human world from relaxing into something worse. To maintain the tension between truth and falsity, beauty and ugliness, good and evil.. I believe the highest duty of the serious novelist is, whatever the means or technique, to be a critic of his society, to hold society to its own ideals, or if these ideals are unworthy, to suggest better ideals. Edward Abbey
Anarchism is founded on the observation that since few men...
7
Anarchism is founded on the observation that since few men are wise enough to rule themselves, even fewer are wise enough to rule others. Edward Abbey
If it's knowledge and wisdom you want, then seek out...
8
If it's knowledge and wisdom you want, then seek out the company of those who do real work for an honest purpose. Edward Abbey
9
I am hopeful, though not full of hope, and the only reason I don't believe in happy endings is because I don't believe in endings. Edward Abbey
10
One mile farther and I come to a second grave beside the road, nameless like the other, marked only with the dull blue-black stones of the badlands. I do not pause this time. The more often you stop the more difficult it is to continue. Stop too long and they cover you with rocks. Edward Abbey
Ah yes, the head is full of books. The hard...
11
Ah yes, the head is full of books. The hard part is to force them down through the bloodstream and out through the fingers. Edward Abbey
As for writing, that's a cruel hard business. Unless you're...
12
As for writing, that's a cruel hard business. Unless you're very lucky it'll break your heart. Edward Abbey
What is the essence of the art of writing? Part...
13
What is the essence of the art of writing? Part One: Have something to say. Part Two: Say it well. Edward Abbey
14
Certainly, I want to capture the reader's attention from the beginning and hold it until the end: that is half the purpose of my art. The other half must be to tell my story in the most honest way that I can. Edward Abbey
[R]eality and real people are too subtle and complicated for...
15
[R]eality and real people are too subtle and complicated for anybody's typewriter, even Tolstoy's, even yours, even mine. Edward Abbey
16
A writer must be hard to live with: when not working he is miserable, and when he is working he is obsessed. Or so it is with me. Thus my writing life consists of spells of languor alternating with fits and spasms of mad typing. At all times, though, I keep a journal, a record book, and most everything begins in the form of notes scribbled down on the pages of that journal. Edward Abbey
17
Why can't we simply borrow what is useful to us from Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, especially Zen, as we borrow from Christianity, science, American Indian traditions and world literature in general, including philosophy, and let the rest go hang? Borrow what we need but rely principally upon our own senses, common sense and daily living experience. Edward Abbey
18
Perhaps I shouldn't call it shit. That's a bit crude. I don't really despise Christianity or even the Roman Church, and certainly not the incontrovertible glory of the Middle Ages. What I do despise is the contemporary inclination to flop to the knees and crawl back into the past, to shy from what seem like impossible problems in order to bury the head, asshole aloft and twitching, in the Sands of Time. Cowardice, I calls it. Illusion-seeking. Womb-crawling. And treason. Desertion in the face of the enemy. Strong words indeed. But I've always been rather a blunt, tough, plain-spoken type. . Edward Abbey
19
In this respect the differences between the USA and the USSR are those of evangelical dinosaurs competing for domination on one small planet: the first deifies Jesus Christ, the other Karl Marx. Neither has much practical interest in what those two sincere and hard-working fellows actually preached. Edward Abbey
The more we learn of outer space and inner space,...
20
The more we learn of outer space and inner space, of quasars and quarks, of Big Bangs and Little Blips, the more remote, abstract and intellectually inconsequential it all becomes. Edward Abbey
What we need now are heroes and heroines, about a...
21
What we need now are heroes and heroines, about a million of them, one brave deed is worth a thousand books. Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul. Edward Abbey
Readers, not critics, are the people who determine a book's...
22
Readers, not critics, are the people who determine a book's eventual fate. Edward Abbey
I would not sacrifice a single living mesquite tree for...
23
I would not sacrifice a single living mesquite tree for any book ever written. One square mile of living desert is worth a hundred 'great books' - and one brave deed is worth a thousand. Edward Abbey
To the question: Wilderness, who needs it? Doc would say:...
24
To the question: Wilderness, who needs it? Doc would say: Because we like the taste of freedom, comrades. Because we like the smell of danger. But, thought Hayduke, what about the smell of fear, Dad? Edward Abbey
Society is like a stew. If you don't stir it...
25
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. Edward Abbey
Anarchism is democracy taken seriously.
26
Anarchism is democracy taken seriously. Edward Abbey
Our 'neoconservatives' are neither new nor conservative, but old as...
27
Our 'neoconservatives' are neither new nor conservative, but old as Babylon and evil as Hell. Edward Abbey
28
Anarchism is not a romantic fable but the hardheaded realization, based on five thousand years of experience, that we cannot entrust the management of our lives to kings, priests, politicians, generals, and county commissioners. Edward Abbey
In the land of bleating sheep and braying jackasses, one...
29
In the land of bleating sheep and braying jackasses, one brave and honest man is bound to create a scandal. Edward Abbey
And the so-called 'political process' is a fraud: Our elected...
30
And the so-called 'political process' is a fraud: Our elected officials, like our bureaucratic functionaries, like even our judges, are largely the indentured servants of the commercial interests. Edward Abbey
31
If you hope for any sort of dialogue and unity with all factions on the vaguely leftist or radical side of politics, you must cease from silly verbal abuse. If you don't want it, then we go on as we are, fractious and impotent. Edward Abbey
All we have, it seems to me, is the beauty...
32
All we have, it seems to me, is the beauty of art and nature and life, and the love which that beauty inspires. Edward Abbey
33
Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul. Edward Abbey
34
You can't study the darkness by flooding it with light. Edward Abbey
35
The love of wilderness is more than a hunger for what is always beyong reach; it is also an expression of loyalty to the earth, the earth which bore us and sustains us, the only paradise we shall ever know, the only paradise we ever need, if only we had the eyes to see. Edward Abbey
36
Water, water, water.. There is no shortage of water in the desert but exactly the right amount , a perfect ratio of water to rock, water to sand, insuring that wide free open, generous spacing among plants and animals, homes and towns and cities, which makes the arid West so different from any other part of the nation. There is no lack of water here unless you try to establish a city where no city should be. Edward Abbey
37
What is the purpose of the giant sequoia tree? The purpose of the giant sequoia tree is to provide shade for the tiny titmouse. Edward Abbey
38
The fire. The odor of burning juniper is the sweetest fragrance on the face of the earth, in my honest judgment; I doubt if all the smoking censers of Dante's paradise could equal it. One breath of juniper smoke, like the perfume of sagebrush after rain, evokes in magical catalysis, like certain music, the space and light and clarity and piercing strangeness of the American West. Long may it burn. . Edward Abbey
39
If a man's imagination were not so weak, so easily tired, if his capacity for wonder not so limited, he would abandon forever such fantasies of the supernal. He would learn to perceive in water, leaves and silence more than sufficient of the absolute and marvelous, more than enough to console him for the loss of the ancient dreams. Edward Abbey
40
The weather here is windy, balmy, sometimes wet. Desert springtime, with flowers popping up all over the place, trees leafing out, streams gushing down from the mountains. Great time of year for hiking, camping, exploring, sleeping under the new moon and the old stars. At dawn and at evening we hear the coyotes howling with excitement - mating season. And lots of fresh rabbit meat hopping about to feed the young ones with. Edward Abbey
41
Orthodoxy is a relaxation of the mind accompanied by a stiffening of the heart. Edward Abbey
42
I suppose each of us has his own fantasy of how he wants to die. I would like to go out in a blaze of glory, myself, or maybe simply disappear someday, far out in the heart of the wilderness I love, all by myself, alone with the Universe and whatever God may happen to be looking on. Disappear - and never return. That's my fantasy. Edward Abbey
43
Our institutions are too big; they represent not the best but the worst characteristics of human beings. By submitting to huge hierarchies of power, we gain freedom from personal responsibility for what we do and are forced to do - the seduction of it - but we lose the dignity of being real men and women. Power corrupts; attracts the worst and corrupts the best.. Refuse to participate in evil; insist on taking part in what is healthy, generous, and responsible. Stand up, speak out, and when necessary fight back. Get down off the fence and lend a hand, grab a-hold, be a citizen - not a subject. Edward Abbey
44
Power is always dangerous. Power attracts the worst and corrupts the best. Edward Abbey
45
Lifting her lovely and longing face towards the inaudible chant of the sun, she drifted through her time, through space, through the concatenate cells of her unfolding self. Where to now, Abbzug? You're twenty-eight and a half years old, Abbzug.  Edward Abbey
46
A crowded society is a restrictive society; an overcrowded society becomes an authoritarian, repressive and murderous society. Edward Abbey
47
The gross evil of our time defies all labels. Edward Abbey
48
One final paragraph of advice: 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. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it’s still here. So get out there and hunt and fish and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, climb the mountains, bag the peaks, run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, the lovely, mysterious, and awesome space. Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to the body, the body active and alive, and I promise you this much; I promise you this one sweet victory over our enemies, over those desk-bound men and women with their hearts in a safe deposit box, and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators. I promise you this; You will outlive the bastards. Edward Abbey
49
Where all think alike there is little danger of innovation. Edward Abbey
50
Hard times are a-coming, and people without useful, practical skills are going to suffer. Or suffer most. Edward Abbey
51
I'd like to see North America become a dry, sunny, sandy region inhabited mainly by lizards, buzzards and a modest human population - about 25 million would be plenty - of pastoralists and prospectors (prospecting for truth), gathering once a year in the ruins of ancient, mysterious cities for great ceremonies of music, art, dance, poetry, joy, faith and renewal. That's my dream of the American future. Like most such dreams, it will probably come true. That is why I'm still an optimist. . Edward Abbey
52
I believe that the military-industrial state will eventually collapse, possibly even in our lifetime, and that a majority of us (if prepared) will muddle through to a freer, more open, less crowded, green and spacious agrarian society. (Maybe; of course it may be only a repeat of the middle ages.) Edward Abbey
53
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. Edward Abbey
54
There is a certain animal vitality in most of us which carries us through any trouble but the absolutely overwhelming. Only a fool has no sorrow, only an idiot has no grief - but then only a fool and an idiot will let grief and sorrow ride him down into the grave. Edward Abbey
55
Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell. Edward Abbey
56
The ugliest thing in America is greed, the lust for power and domination, the lunatic ideology of perpetual Growth - with a capital G. 'Progress' in our nation has for too long been confused with 'Growth'; I see the two as different, almost incompatible, since progress means, or should mean, change for the better - toward social justice, a livable and open world, equal opportunity and affirmative action for all forms of life. And I mean all forms, not merely the human. The grizzly, the wolf, the rattlesnake, the condor, the coyote, the crocodile, whatever, each and every species has as much right to be here as we do. . Edward Abbey
57
An economic system which can only expand or expire must be false to all that is human. Edward Abbey
58
There was this tendency to drift. And yet  when she thought about it, what did she really want to do? Or be? She had given up dancing-the dance-because it was too demanding, because it required an almost total devotion which she was unwilling to give. The cruelest art.  Edward Abbey
59
I am convinced now that the desert has no heart, that it presents a riddle which has no answer, and that the riddle itself is an illusion created by some limitation or exaggeration of the displaced human consciousness. Edward Abbey
60
Should a writer have a social purpose? Any honest writer is bound to become a critic of the society he lives in, and sometimes, like Mark Twain or Kurt Vonnegut or Leo Tolstoy or Francois Rabelais, a very harsh critic indeed. The others are sycophants, courtiers, servitors, entertainers. Shakespeare was a sychophant; however, he was and is also a very good poet, and so we continue to read him. Edward Abbey
61
How become a writer? Naturally. Edward Abbey
62
[I]t is the writer's duty to write fiction which promotes virtue, the good, the beautiful, and above all, the true.... It is the writer's duty to hate injustice, to defy the powerful, and to speak for the voiceless. To be ... the severest critics of our own societies. Edward Abbey
63
Beyond the wall of the unreal city … there is another world waiting for you. It is the old true world of the deserts, the mountains, the forests, the islands, the shores, the open plains. Go there. Be there. Walk gently and quietly deep within it. And then –May your trails be dim, lonesome, stony, narrow, winding and only slightly uphill. May the wind bring rain for the slickrock potholes fourteen miles on the other side of yonder blue ridge. May God's dog serenade your campfire, may the rattlesnake and the screech owl amuse your reverie, may the Great Sun dazzle your eyes by day and the Great Bear watch over you by night. Edward Abbey
64
Poor Hayduke: won all his arguments but lost his immortal soul. Edward Abbey
65
Our culture runs on coffee and gasoline, the first often tasting like the second. Edward Abbey
66
To make the distinction unmistakably clear: Civilization is the vital force in human history; culture is that inert mass of institutions and organizations which accumulate around and tend to drag down the advance of life; Civilization is Giordano Bruno facing death by fire; culture is the Cardinal Bellarmino, after ten years of inquisition, sending Bruno to the stake in the Campo di Fiori... Edward Abbey
67
The one thing ... that is truly ugly is the climate of hate and intimidation, created by a noisy few, which makes the decent majority reluctant to air in public their views on anything controversial.... Where all pretend to be thinking alike, it's likely that no one is thinking at all. Edward Abbey
68
In any nation but the USA, it is taken for granted that a man of distinction, ability, wealth or power will keep a mistress and a few girlfriends on the side. Only in America, still suffering from its grotesque, hypocritical Puritan heritage, do we persist in attempting to deny and repeal a million years of basic primate biology. Edward Abbey
69
The distrust of wit is the beginning of tyranny. Edward Abbey
70
I doubt that my sense of personal freedom is any stronger than anybody else's. I'm happy to respect authority when it's genuine authority, based on moral or intellectual or even technical superiority. I'm eager to follow a hero if we can find one. But I tend to resist or evade any kind of authority based merely on the power to coerce. Government, for example. The Army tried to train us to salute the uniform, not the man. Failed. I will salute the man, maybe, if I think he's worthy of it, but I don't salute uniforms anymore. Edward Abbey
71
I took the other road, all right, but only because it was the easy road for me, the way I wanted to go. If I've encountered some unnecessary resistance that's because most of the traffic is going the other way. Edward Abbey
72
Has joy any survival value in the operations of evolution? I suspect that it does; I suspect that the morose and fearful are doomed to quick extinction. Where there is no joy there can be no courage; and without courage all other virtues are useless. Therefore the frogs, the toads, keep on singing even though we know, if they don't, that the sound of their uproar must surely be luring all the snakes and ringtail cats and kit foxes and coyotes and great horned owls toward the scene of their happiness. Edward Abbey
73
People who think that love, sex, marriage, work, play, life and death are serious matters are urged NOT to read this book. Buy it, yes, but don't read it. [Regarding "The Fool's Progress"] Edward Abbey
74
Instant communication is not communication at all but merely a frantic, trivial, nerve-wracking bombardment of cliches, threats, fads, fashions, gibberish and advertising. Edward Abbey
75
It's a great country: you can say whatever you like so long as it is strictly true--nobody will ever take you seriously. Edward Abbey
76
So I lived alone. The first thing I did was take off my pants. Naturally. Edward Abbey
77
I hate and fear violence myself, have always avoided barroom brawls, and tho' I'm a bit of a gun-nut, and a member of the NRA, I never shoot at anything but beer cans and mule deer. (In season.) And seldom hit either, except by accident. Edward Abbey
78
To the Technocrats: Have mercy on us. Relax a bit, take time out for simple pleasures. For example, the luxuries of electricity, indoor plumbing, central heating, instant electronic communication and such, have taught me to relearn and enjoy the basic human satisfactions of dipping water from a cold clear mountain stream; of building a wood fire in a cast-iron stove; of using long winter nights for making music, making things, making love; of writing long letters, in longhand with a fountain pen, to the few people on this earth I truly care about. Edward Abbey
79
And if the computer gives you any back talk, pour some well-sugared office coffee into its evil little silicon brain. Edward Abbey
80
Anarchism? You bet your sweet betsy. The only cure for the ills of democracy is more democracy. Much more. Edward Abbey
81
They cannot see that growth for the sake of growth is a cancerous madness, that Phoenix and Albuquerque will not be better cities to live in when their populations are doubled again and again. They would never understand that an economic system which can only expand or expire must be false to all that is human. Edward Abbey
82
Most every charge you level at American capitalism applies with equal force to communism, with this nice difference, that the Reds make no pretense at such frivolities as civil liberties or environmentalism. The differences in degree are so great that they result in a radical difference in kind. Edward Abbey
83
As to the charge that I am a cranky old man, I plead guilty. Edward Abbey
84
The children are innocent until proven guilty. For their sake, not ours, we must soldier on, muddling our way toward frugality, simplicity, liberty, community, until some kind of sane and rational balance is achieved between our ability to love and our cockeyed ambition to conquer and dominate everything in sight. No wonder the galaxies recede from us in every direction, fleeing at velocities that approach the speed of light. They are frightened. We humans are the Terror of the Universe. Edward Abbey
85
But of the seven deadly sins, wrath is the healthiest - next only to lust. Edward Abbey
86
One of the pleasant things about small town life is that everyone, whether rich or poor, liked or disliked, has some kind of a role and place in the community. I never felt that living in a city -- as I once did for a couple of years. Edward Abbey
87
A house built on greed cannot long endure. Edward Abbey
88
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. Edward Abbey
89
My loyalties will not be bound by national borders, or confined in time by one nation's history, or limited in the spiritual dimension by one language and culture. I pledge my allegiance to the damned human race, and my everlasting love to the green hills of Earth, and my intimations of glory to the singing stars, to the very end of space and time. Edward Abbey
90
If wilderness is outlawed, only outlaws can save wilderness. Edward Abbey
91
There is a way of being wrong which is also sometimes necessarily right. Edward Abbey
92
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. Edward Abbey
93
Not all questions can be answered. Edward Abbey
94
Grown men do not need leaders. Edward Abbey
95
Yes, there are plenty of heroes and heroines everywhere you look. They are not famous people. They are generally obscure and modest people doing useful work, keeping their families together and taking an active part in the health of their communities, opposing what is evil (in one way or another) and defending what is good. Heroes do not want power over others. Edward Abbey
96
Let's have some precision in language here: terrorism means deadly violence -- for a political and/or economical purpose -- carried out against people and other living things, and is usually conducted by governments against their own citizens (as at Kent State, or in Vietnam, or in Poland, or in most of Latin America right now), or by corporate entities such as J. Paul Getty, Exxon, Mobil Oil, etc etc., against the land and all creatures that depend upon the land for life and livelihood. A bulldozer ripping up a hillside to strip mine for coal is committing terrorism; the damnation of a flowing river followed by the drowning of Cherokee graves, of forest and farmland, is an act of terrorism. Sabotage, on the other hand, means the use of force against inanimate property, such as machinery, which is being used (e.g.) to deprive human beings of their rightful work (as in the case of Ned Ludd and his mates); sabotage (le sabot dropped in a spinning jenny) -- for whatever purpose -- has never meant and has never implied the use of violence against living creatures. . Edward Abbey
97
An empty man is full of himself. Edward Abbey
98
Me, I'm living under a sword too, as Jack may have told you. An old wino's disease, which could lay me in the grave most anytime. Not that I mind too much; I've done everything I ever wanted to do. But ... as you know, one would like to continue doing the good things over and over again, so long as there's pleasure in it. Edward Abbey
99
We need the possibility of escape as surely as we need hope. Edward Abbey
100
The tragedy of modern war is that the young men die fighting each other - instead of their real enemies back home in the capitals. Edward Abbey