Saving the world was merely a hobby. My *vocation* has been that of inspector of desert water holes. — Edward Abbey Copy Share Image
“Mountains complement desert as desert compliments city, as wilderness compliments and completes civilization.” — Edward Abbey Copy Share Image
What draws us into the desert is the search for something intimate in the remote. — Edward Abbey Copy Share Image
My sole literary ambition is to write one good novel, then retire to my hut in the desert, assume the lotus position,… — Edward Abbey Copy Share Image
“Water, water, water... There is no shortage of water in the desert but exactly the right amount...unless you try to establish a… — Edward Abbey Copy Share Image
The knowledge that refuge is available, when and if needed, makes the silent inferno of the desert more easily bearable. Mountains complement… — Edward Abbey Copy Share Image
The extreme clarity of the desert light is equaled by the extreme individuation of desert life forms. Love flowers best in openness… — Edward Abbey Copy Share Image
If you're never ridden a fast horse at a dead run across a desert valley at dawn, be of good cheer: You've… — Edward Abbey Copy Share Image
“I would not sacrifice a single living mesquite tree for any book ever written. One square mile of living desert is worth… — Edward Abbey Copy Share Image
The desert wears... a veil of mystery. Motionless and silent it evokes in us an elusive hint of something unknown, unknowable, about… — Edward Abbey Copy Share Image
“I am convinced now that the desert has no heart, that it presents a riddle which has no answer, and that the… — Edward Abbey Copy Share Image
“This sweet virginal primitive land will metaphorically breathe a sigh of relief --like a whisper of wind--when we are all and finally… — Edward Abbey Copy Share Image
“One mile farther and I come to a second grave beside the road, nameless like the other, marked only with the dull… — Edward Abbey Copy Share Image
In this glare of brilliant emptiness, in this arid intensity of pure heat, in the heart of a weird solitude, great silence… — Edward Abbey Copy Share Image
May your rivers flow without end... down into a desert of red rock, blue mesas, domes and pinnacles and grottos of endless… — Edward Abbey Copy Share Image
We need wilderness because we are wild animals. Everyone needs a place where he can go to go crazy in peace. For… — Edward Abbey Copy Share Image
Desert springtime, with flowers popping up all over the place, trees leafing out, streams gushing down from the mountains. Great time of… — Edward Abbey Copy Share Image
“Within minutes my 115-mile walk through the desert hills becomes a thing apart, a disjunct reality on the far side of a… — Edward Abbey Copy Share Image
Water, water, water…There is no shortage of water in the desert but exactly the right amount , a perfect ratio of water… — Edward Abbey Copy Share Image
Strolling on, it seems to me that the strangeness and wonder of existence are emphasized here, in the desert, by the comparative… — Edward Abbey Copy Share Image
Under the desert sun, in the dogmatic clarity, the fables of theology and the myths of classical philosophy dissolve like mist. The… — Edward Abbey Copy Share Image
most of my wandering in the desert i've done alone. not so much from choice as from necessity - i generally prefer… — Edward Abbey Copy Share Image
“The weather here is windy, balmy, sometimes wet. Desert springtime, with flowers popping up all over the place, trees leafing out, streams… — Edward Abbey Copy Share Image
Night and day the river flows. If time is the mind of space, the River is the soul of the desert. Brave… — Edward Abbey Copy Share Image
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… — Edward Abbey Copy Share
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… — Edward Abbey Copy Share
By the age of eighteen, a human has acquired enough joy and heartache to provide the food of reflection for a century. — Edward Abbey Copy Share
“Our institutions are too big; they represent not the best but the worst characteristics of human beings. By submitting to huge hierarchies of power,… — Edward Abbey Copy Share
No man-made structure in all of American history has been hated so much, by so many, for so long, with such good reason, as… — Edward Abbey Copy Share
Where all pretend to be thinking alike, it's likely that no one is thinking at all. — Edward Abbey Copy Share
“But why, the questioner insists, why do people like you pretend to love uninhabited country so much? Why this cult of wilderness? Why the… — Edward Abbey Copy Share
Civilization is a youth with a molotov cocktail in his hand. Culture is the Soviet tank or L.A. cop that guns him down. — Edward Abbey Copy Share
All revolutions have failed? Perhaps. But rebellion for good cause is self- justifying -- a good in itself. Rebellion transforms slaves into human beings,… — Edward Abbey Copy Share
“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… — Edward Abbey Copy Share
“Look here, I want to say, for godsake folks get out of them there machines, take off those fucking sunglasses and unpeel both eyeballs,… — Edward Abbey Copy Share
“What is the essence of the art of writing? Part One: Have something to say. Part Two: Say it well.” — Edward Abbey Copy Share
