Edward Abbey
Edward Abbey
Edward Paul Abbeywas 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 radical environmental groups, and the non-fiction work Desert Solitaire...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionActivist
Date of Birth29 January 1927
CountryUnited States of America
aquariums violet ink
The Proustian aquarium: grotesque and gorgeous fish drifting with languid fins through a subaqueous medium of pale violet polluted ink.
bless care devil four god people picked ready time tough
God still sits on the throne, the devil is a liar. You may be goingthrough a tough time right now but God is getting ready to bless youin a way that only He can. Keep the faith. My instructions were topick four people that I wanted God to bless, and I picked you. Pleasepass this to at least four people you care about
bigger cloud dark name small
For there is a cloud on my horizon. A small dark cloud no bigger than my hand. Its name is Progress.
elegant feed foul killer kindred predator sly soaring trembling worms
We are kindred all of us, ... killer and victim, predator and prey, me and the sly coyote, the soaring buzzard, the elegant gopher snake, the trembling cottontail, the foul worms that feed on our entrails, all of them, all of us.
war officers
War? The one war I'd be happy to join is the war against officers.
self hatred self-hatred
One thing worse than self-hatred is chiggers.
advocate arch delicate glue lady park perhaps service sort spray
There have been some, even in the Park Service, who advocate spraying Delicate Arch with a fixative of some sort - Elmer's glue perhaps or Lady Clairol Spray Net.
believe kissing embrace
I believe in nothing that I cannot touch, kiss, embrace.... The rest is only hearsay.
believe listening lasts
The best argument for Christianity is the Gregorian chant. Listening to that music, one can believe anything -- while the music lasts.
nutcrackers reincarnation
Reincarnation? There is such a thing. What could be more Mozartian than the Nutcracker Suite?
distance kids work-out
Simplicity is always a virtue. One kid on a riverbank working out a Stephen Foster tune on his new harmonica heard from the correct esthetic distance projects more magic and power than the entire Vienna Philharmonic and Chorus laboring (once again) through the Mozart Requiem or Bach's B Minor Mass.
book ideas smell
Music endures and ages far better than books. Books, made of words, are unavoidably attached to ideas, events, conflict, and history, but music has the power to transcend time. At least for a time. Palestrina sounds as fresh today as he did in 1555, but Dante, only three centuries older, already smells of the archaic, the medieval, the catacombs.
symphony perfect strive
Mozart, striving for perfection, wrote the same symphony forty-one times. In his case, it worked. He wrote a perfect symphony.
writing police musical
Poor Dimitri Shostakovich: In the Soviet Union, he was condemned as being too radical; in the West, for being too conservative. He could please no one but the musical public. He revenged himself on both by writing a short piece called 'March of the Soviet Police.'