"Great art is indefinable but that's all right; it exists anyway."
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Quote collection
Edward Abbey quotes (page 22 of 33)
653 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"The love of a man for his wife, his child, of the land where he lives and works, is for me the real meaning of mystical experience."
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"Humility is a virtue when you have no other."
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"The very poor are strictly materialistic. It takes money to be a mystic."
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"The moral duty of the free writer is to begin his work at home: to be a critic of his own community, his own country, his own government, his own culture. The more freedom the writer possesses, the greater the moral obligation to play the role of critic."
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"Reason has seldom failed us because it has seldom been tried."
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"So I write mainly for the fun of it, the hell of it, the duty of it. I enjoy writing and will probably be a scribbler on my dying day, sprawled on some stony trail halfway between two dry waterholes."
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"How could anything non-controversial be of intellectual interest to grown-ups?"
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"We are befouling and destroying our own home, we are committing a slow but accelerating race suicide and life murder - planetary biocide. Now there is a mighty theme for a mighty book but a challenge to which no modern novelist or poet has yet responded. Where is our Melville, our Milton, our Thomas Mann when we need him most?"
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"There are circumstances in which suicide presents a viable option; a workable alternative; the only sensible solution."
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"The tragic sense of life: our heroic acceptance of the suffering of others."
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"Most of us lead lives of chaotic improvisation from day to day, bawling for peace while plunging grimly into fresh disorders."
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"I wait. Now the night flows back, the mighty stillness embraces and includes me; I can see the stars again and the world of starlight. I am twenty miles or more from the nearest fellow human, but instead of loneliness I feel loveliness. Loveliness and a quiet exultation."
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"Music begins where words leave off. Music expresses the inexpressible. If there is a Kingdom of Heaven, it lies in music."
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"Poetry -- even bad poetry -- may be our final hope."
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"Longevity, like intelligence and good looks and health and strength of character, is largely a matter of genetic heritage. Choose your parents with care."
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"Mental degeneracy may be caused by lead poisoning. Or by a poor dip in the gene pool."
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"Anywhere, anytime, I'd sacrifice the finest nuance for a laugh, the most elegant trope for a smile."
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"As Mark Twain said, 'I love Wagner -- if only they'd cut out all that damned singing!'"
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"It is not an easy thing to inflate a dog."
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