There are only two kinds of books -- good books and the others. The good are winnowed from the bad through the… — Edward Abbey Copy Share Image
Man's deliberate destruction of his own habitat -- planet Earth -- could serve as a mighty theme for a mighty book worthy… — Edward Abbey Copy Share Image
My books always make the best-seller lists in Wolf Hole, Arizona, and Hanksville, Utah. — Edward Abbey Copy Share Image
A good book is a kind of paper club, serving to rouse the slumbrous and to silence the obtuse. — Edward Abbey Copy Share Image
“There are only two living American authors fully deserving of the Nobel Prize. One is Lewis Mumford. The other is Wallace Stegner,… — Edward Abbey Copy Share Image
Too many American authors have a servile streak where their backbone should be. Where's our latest Nobel laureate? More than likely you'll… — Edward Abbey Copy Share Image
It is an author's most solemn obligation to honor truth. If the free and independent writer does not speak truth to power,… — Edward Abbey Copy Share Image
How long does it take to write a good book? All of the years that you've lived. — Edward Abbey Copy Share Image
Most of what we call the classics of world literature suggest artifacts in a wax museum. We have to hire and pay… — Edward Abbey Copy Share Image
“People who think that love, sex, marriage, work, play, life and death are serious matters are urged NOT to read this book.… — 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
Ah yes, the head is full of books. The hard part is to force them down through the bloodstream and out through… — Edward Abbey Copy Share Image
“The novel should tell the truth, as I see the truth, or as the novelist persuades me to see it. And one… — Edward Abbey Copy Share Image
In order to write a book, it is necessary to sit down (or stand up) and write. Therein lies the difficulty. — Edward Abbey Copy Share Image
“I might also say, regarding reviews and reviewers, that I have yet to read a review of any of my own books… — Edward Abbey Copy Share Image
“But hell, I do like to write letters. Much easier than writing books.” — Edward Abbey Copy Share Image
“I think it is far more important to save one square mile of wilderness, anywhere, by any means, than to produce another… — Edward Abbey Copy Share Image
My own best books have not been published. In fact, they've not even been written yet. — Edward Abbey Copy Share Image
I would like to evoke the sense of wonder and magic in the reader but without invoking the mystical, the supernatural or… — Edward Abbey Copy Share Image
It is always dishonest for a reviewer to review the author instead of the author's book. — Edward Abbey Copy Share Image
“What I am really writing about, what I have always written about, is the idea of human freedom, human community, the real… — Edward Abbey Copy Share Image
There comes a point, in literary objectivity, when the author's self- effacement is hard to distinguish from moral cowardice. — 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
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
“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 Image
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 Image
Where all pretend to be thinking alike, it's likely that no one is thinking at all. — Edward Abbey Copy Share Image
“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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
“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 Image
