Quotes by Edward Abbey

Instant communication is not communication at all but merely a frantic, trivial, nerve-wracking bombardment of cliches, threats, fads, fashions, gibberish and advertising.

Its a great country: you can say whatever you like so long as it is strictly true--nobody will ever take you seriously.

So I lived alone. The first thing I did was take off my pants. Naturally.

I hate and fear violence myself, have always avoided barroom brawls, and tho Im a bit of a gun-nut, and a member of the NRA, I never shoot at anything but beer cans and mule deer. (In season.) And seldom hit either, except by accident.

To the Technocrats: Have mercy on us. Relax a bit, take time out for simple pleasures. For example, the luxuries of electricity, indoor plumbing, central heating, instant electronic communication and such, have taught me to relearn and enjoy the basic human satisfactions of dipping water from a cold clear mountain stream; of building a wood fire in a cast-iron stove; of using long winter nights for making music, making things, making love; of writing long letters, in longhand with a fountain pen, to the few people on this earth I truly care about.

And if the computer gives you any back talk, pour some well-sugared office coffee into its evil little silicon brain.

Anarchism? You bet your sweet betsy. The only cure for the ills of democracy is more democracy. Much more.

They cannot see that growth for the sake of growth is a cancerous madness, that Phoenix and Albuquerque will not be better cities to live in when their populations are doubled again and again. They would never understand that an economic system which can only expand or expire must be false to all that is human.

Most every charge you level at American capitalism applies with equal force to communism, with this nice difference, that the Reds make no pretense at such frivolities as civil liberties or environmentalism. The differences in degree are so great that they result in a radical difference in kind.

As to the charge that I am a cranky old man, I plead guilty.

The children are innocent until proven guilty. For their sake, not ours, we must soldier on, muddling our way toward frugality, simplicity, liberty, community, until some kind of sane and rational balance is achieved between our ability to love and our cockeyed ambition to conquer and dominate everything in sight. No wonder the galaxies recede from us in every direction, fleeing at velocities that approach the speed of light. They are frightened. We humans are the Terror of the Universe.

But of the seven deadly sins, wrath is the healthiest - next only to lust.

One of the pleasant things about small town life is that everyone, whether rich or poor, liked or disliked, has some kind of a role and place in the community. I never felt that living in a city -- as I once did for a couple of years.

A house built on greed cannot long endure.

We are preoccupied with time. If we could learn to love space as deeply as we are now obsessed with time, we might discover a new meaning in the phrase to live like men.

My loyalties will not be bound by national borders, or confined in time by one nations history, or limited in the spiritual dimension by one language and culture. I pledge my allegiance to the damned human race, and my everlasting love to the green hills of Earth, and my intimations of glory to the singing stars, to the very end of space and time.

If wilderness is outlawed, only outlaws can save wilderness.

There is a way of being wrong which is also sometimes necessarily right.

A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.

Not all questions can be answered.