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Edward Abbey Biography

Edward Paul Abbey (January 29, 1927 – March 14, 1989) was an American author and essayist noted for his advocacy of environmental issues, criticism of public land policies, and anarchist political views. His best-known works include the novel The Monkey Wrench Gang, which has been cited as an inspiration by environmental groups, and the non-fiction work Desert Solitaire.

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Edward Abbey Quotes

The sneakiest form of literary subtlety, in a corrupt society, is to speak the plain truth. The critics will not understand you; the public will not believe you; your fellow writers will shake their heads. Laughter, praise, honors, money, and the love of beautiful girls will be your only reward.

Beautiful, Girl, Laughter, Love, Reward

Nothing could be older than the daily news, nothing deader than yesterday's newspaper.

Daily, News, Newspapers, Older, Yesterday

Wilderness begins in the human mind.

Begins, Human, Humans, Mind, Wilderness

Our suicidal poets (Plath, Berryman, Lowell, Jarrell, et al. ) spent too much of their lives inside rooms and classrooms when they should have been trudging up mountains, slogging through swamps, rowing down rivers. The indoor life is the next best thing to premature burial.

Journey, Lowell, Plath, Rivers, Suicidal, Trudging

Original sin, the true original sin, is the blind destruction for the sake of greed of this natural paradise which lies all around us-if only we were worthy of it.

Greed, Lying, Paradise, True

Most of us lead lives of chaotic improvisation from day to day, bawling for peace while plunging grimly into fresh disorders.

Chaotic, Disorder, Improvisation, Lead

If there's anything I hate, it's the vibraphone. And the cha-cha-cha. And Latin rhythms generally.

Hate, Latin, Rhythm, Rhythms, Vibraphone

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.

Artists, Entertainers, Horse, Laborers, Real, Warrior

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.

Boundaries, Cities, Defender, Drive, Feet, Men

There are two kinds of people I cannot abide: bigots and any well-organized ethnic group.

Abide, Group, Groups, Kinds, People, Two

One man alone can be pretty dumb sometimes, but for real bona fide stupidity, there ain't nothin' can beat teamwork.

Fide, Real, Stupid, Stupidity, Teamwork

Jesus don't walk on water no more; his feet leak.

Jesus, Feet, Water

Rocks, like louseworts and snail darters and pupfish and 3rd-world black, lesbian, militant poets, have rights, too. Especially the right to exist.

Black, Darters, Poets, Right, Rights, Rocks

The industrial way of life leads to the industrial way of death. From Shiloh to Dachau, from Antietam to Stalingrad, from Hiroshima to Vietnam and Afghanistan, the great specialty of industry and technology has been the mass production of human corpses.

Dachau, Human, Industrial, Life, Technology, War

The purpose and function of government is not to preside over change but to prevent change. By political methods when unavoidable, by violence when convenient.

Change, Government, Political, Preside, Purpose

We judge individual man and women as we do nations and races -- by the character of their achievement and by their achievement of character.

Character, Men, Nations, Race, Women

Why do I write? I write to entertain my friends and to exasperate our enemies. To unfold the folded lie, to record to truth of our time, and, of course, to promote esthetic bliss.

Course, Enemy, Lying, Promote, Record, Writing

May your rivers flow without end. . . down into a desert of red rock, blue mesas, domes and pinnacles and grottos of endless stone, and down again into a deep vast ancient unknown chasm where bars of sunlight blaze on profiled cliffs. . . where something strange and more beautiful and more full of wonder than your deepest dreams waits for you-beyond that next turning of the canyon walls.

Ancient, Beautiful, Dream, Stone, Unknown, Wall

Though I've lived in the rural West most of my life, I never once fell in love with a horse. Not once. Neither end.

Ends, Horse, Love, Rural, West

War? The one war I'd be happy to join is the war against officers.

Against, Happy, Join, Officers, War

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