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Edmund Wilson Was Our Greatest American Literary Critic Because He Was More Than A Literary Critic: He Was A Fearless, Even Radical Judge Of The Society He Lived In. (see, For Example, _a Piece Of My Mind_; _the Cold War And The Income Tax_; The Introduction To _patriotic Gore_.) Our Conventional Critics Cannot Forgive Him For Those Scandalous Lapses In Good Taste.

-Edward Abbey

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Edmund Wilson Was Our

Edward Abbey

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Edmund Wilson Was Our Greatest American Literary Critic Because He Was More Than A Literary Critic: He Was A Fearless, Even Radical Judge Of The Society He Lived In. (see, For Example, _a Piece Of My Mind_; _the Cold War And The Income Tax_; The Introduction To _patriotic Gore_.) Our Conventional Critics Cannot Forgive Him For Those Scandalous Lapses In Good Taste.

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War? The One War I'd Be Happy To Join Is The War Against Officers.

I Have Been A Lucky Man. But Someone Has To Be.

If, As Some Say, Evil Lies In The Hearts And Not The Institutions Of Men, Then There's Hardly A Distinction Worth Making Between, Say, Hitler's Germany And Rebecca's Sunnybrook Farm.

All Forms Of Government Are Pernicious, Including Good Government.

What Our Economists Call A Depressed Area Almost Always Turns Out To Be A Cleaner, Freer, More Livable Place Than Most.

There Are Two Kinds Of People I Cannot Abide: Bigots And Any Well-organized Ethnic Group.

A Life Without Tragedy Would Not Be Worth Living.

Be As I Am - A Reluctant Enthusiast....a Part-time Crusader, A Half-hearted Fanatic....so Get Out There And Hunt And Fish And Mess Around With Your Friends, Ramble Out Yonder And Explore The Forests, Climb The Mountains, Bag The Peaks, Run The Rivers, Breathe Deep Of That Yet Sweet And Lucid Air, Sit Quietly For A While And Contemplate The Precious Stillness, The Lovely, Mysterious, And Awesome Space.

The Most Common Form Of Terrorism In The U.s.a. Is That Carried On By Bulldozers And Chain Saws.

If Industrial Man Continues To Multiply His Numbers And Expand His Operations He Will Succeed In His Apparent Intention, To Seal Himself Off From The Natural And Isolate Himself Within A Synthetic Prison Of His Own Making.

I Believe In Nothing That I Cannot Touch, Kiss, Embrace.... The Rest Is Only Hearsay.

What Draws Us Into The Desert Is The Search For Something Intimate In The Remote.

Democracy -- Rule By The People -- Sounds Like A Fine Thing; We Should Try It Sometime In America.

I Was Once Invited To Take Part In A Heroic, Possibly Fatal Enterprise, But I Declined, Mainly On Account Of Sloth.

We Should Restore The Practice Of Dueling. It Might Improve Manners Around Here.

Science Transcends Mere Politics. As Recent History Demonstrates, Scientists Are As Willing To Work For A Tojo, A Hitler, Or A Stalin As For The Free Nations Of The West.

Don't Talk To Me About Other Worlds, Separate Realities, Lost Continents Or Invisible Realms -- I Know Where I Belong. Heaven Is Home. Utopia Is Here. Nirvana Is Now.

A Cowboy Is A Hired Hand On The Middle Of A Horse Contemplating The Hind End Of A Cow.

How To Avoid Pleurisy: Never Make Love To A Girl Named Candy On The Tailgate Of A Half-ton Ford Pickup During A Chill Rain In April Out On Grandview Point In San Juan County, Utah.

Desire, Said The Buddha, Is The Cause Of Suffering. But Without Desire, What Delight?

Appearance Versus Reality? Appearance Is Reality, God Damn It!

If The World Is Irrational, We Can Never Know It -- Either It Or Its Irrationality.

What Is Truth? I Don't Know And I'm Sorry I Brought It Up.

We Need Wilderness Whether Or Not We Ever Set Foot In It. We Need A Refuge Even Though We May Never Need To Go There. We Need The Possibility Of Escape As Surely As We Need Hope.

I Hate Intellectual Discussion. When I Hear The Words 'phenomenology' Or 'structuralism', I Reach For My Buck Knife.

In America, As Elsewhere, The General Irritability Level Keeps Rising.

A Writer Must Be Hard To Live With: When Not Working He Is Miserable, And When He Is Working He Is Obsessed.

In The Dog-eat-dog Economy, The Doberman Is Boss.

Every Moment Is Precious. And Precarious.

Belief In God? An Afterlife? I Believe In Rock: This Apodictic Rock Beneath My Feet.

Whenever I Read _time_ Or _newsweek_ Or Such Magazines, I Wash My Hands Afterward. But How To Wash Off The Small But Odious Stain Such Reading Leaves On The Mind?

It's True: Every Time You Kill An Elk, You're Saving Some Cow's Life.

To Die Alone, On Rock Under Sun At The Brink Of The Unknown, Like A Wolf, Like A Great Bird, Seems To Me Very Good Fortune Indeed.

When The Situation Is Hopeless, There's Nothing To Worry About.

Nature, Like Maimonides Said, Is Mainly A Good Place To Throw Beer Cans On Sunday Afternoons.

Platitude: A Statement That Denies By Implication What It Explicitly Affirms.

Through Logic And Inference We Can Prove Anything. Therefore, Logic And Inference, In Contrast To Ordinary Daily Living Experience, Are Secondary Instruments Of Knowledge. Probably Tertiary.

Jane Austen: Getting Into Her Books Is Like Getting In Bed With A Cadaver. Something Vital Is Lacking; Namely, Life.

One Can Imagine A Sane, Healthy, Cheerful Human Society Based On No More Than The Principles Of Common Sense, As Validated Each Day By Work, Play, And Living Experience. But This Remains The Most Utopian And Fantastic Of Ideals.

Life Is Cruel? Compared To What?

Beware The Writer Who Always Encloses The Word *reality* In Quotation Marks: He's Trying To Slip Something Over On You. Or Into You.

Quotation Marks

Government Should Be Weak, Amateurish And Ridiculous. At Present, It Fulfills Only A Third Of The Role.

Women Truly Are Better Than Men. Otherwise, They'd Be Intolerable.

You Can't Study The Darkness By Flooding It With Light.

What Ideal, Immutable Platonic Cloud Could Equal The Beauty And Perfection Of Any Ordinary Everyday Cloud Floating Over, Say, Tuba City, Arizona, On A Hot Day In June?

New Yorkers Like To Boast That If You Can Survive In New York, You Can Survive Anywhere. But If You Can Survive Anywhere, Why Live In New York?

Life Is Hard? True - But Let's Love It Anyhow, Though It Breaks Every Bone In Our Bodies.

I'm A Humanist; I'd Rather Kill A Man Than A Snake.

Most Of What We Call The Classics Of World Literature Suggest Artifacts In A Wax Museum. We Have To Hire And Pay Professors To Get Them Read And Talked About.

World Literature

Places: A Cold, Bleak, Lonely Day On The Rim At Muley Point, Utah. And The Heart-cracking Loveliness Of The Blood-smeared, Bitter, Incomprehensible Slaughterhouse Of A World.

My Aunt Ida At Age Eighty-three: 'yeah,' She Said, 'i'll Be Dead Pretty Soon. And Frankly, I Don't Give A Damn.'

All Governments Require Enemy Governments.

Orthodoxy Is A Relaxation Of The Mind Accompanied By A Stiffening Of The Heart.

Hierarchical Institutions Are Like Giant Bulldozers -- Obedient To The Whim Of Any Fool Who Takes The Controls.

I Am Delighted, One More Time, By The Daring Of My Species And The Audacity Of Our Flying Machines. There Is Poetry And Music In Our Technology, A Beauty As Touching As That Of Eagle, Moss Campion, Raven Or Yonder Limestone Boulder Shining Under The Arctic Sun.

Civilization, Like An Airplane In Flight, Survives Only As It Keeps Going Forward.

It Is Not The Writer's Task To Answer Questions But To Question Answers. To Be Impertinent, Insolent, And, If Necessary, Subversive.

Some People Write To Please, To Soothe, To Console. Others To Provoke, To Challenge, To Exasperate And Infuriate. I've Always Found The Second Approach The More Pleasing.

Edmund Wilson Was Our Greatest American Literary Critic Because He Was More Than A Literary Critic: He Was A Fearless, Even Radical Judge Of The Society He Lived In. (see, For Example, _a Piece Of My Mind_; _the Cold War And The Income Tax_; The Introduction To _patriotic Gore_.) Our Conventional Critics Cannot Forgive Him For Those Scandalous Lapses In Good Taste.

Those Art Lovers Who Pride Themselves Mostly On *taste* Usually Possess No Other Talent.

The Nuclear Bomb Took All The Fun Out Of War.

I Would Never Betray A Friend To Serve A Cause. Never Reject A Friend To Help An Institution. Great Nations May Fall In Ruin Before I Would Sell A Friend To Save Them.

Late In August The Lure Of The Mountains Becomes Irresistible. Seared By The Everlasting Sunfire, I Want To See Running Water Again, Embrace A Pine Tree, Cut My Initials In The Bark Of An Aspen, Get Bit By A Mosquito, See A Mountain Bluebird, Find A Big Blue Columbine, Get Lost In The Firs, Hike Above Timberline, Sunbathe On Snow And Eat Some Ice, Climb The Rocks And Stand In The Wind At The Top Of The World On The Peak Of Tukuhnikivats.

The Greater Your Dreams, The More Terrible Your Nightmares.

Strolling On, It Seems To Me That The Strangeness And Wonder Of Existence Are Emphasized Here, In The Desert, By The Comparative Sparsity Of The Flora And Fauna: Life Not Crowded Upon Life As In Other Places But Scattered Abroad In Spareness And Simplicity, With A Generous Gift Of Space For Each Herb And Bush And Tree, Each Stem Of Grass, So That The Living Organism Stands Out Bold And Brave And Vivid Against The Lifeless Sand And Barren Rock. The Extreme Clarity Of The Desert Light Is Equaled By The Extreme Individuation Of Desert Life-forms. Love Flowers Best In Openness And Freedom.

Anywhere, Anytime, I'd Sacrifice The Finest Nuance For A Laugh, The Most Elegant Trope For A Smile.

We Live In The Kind Of World Where Courage Is The Most Essential Of Virtues; Without Courage, The Other Virtues Are Useless.

A Society That Feels Itself Too Poor To Afford The Preservation Of Wilderness Is Not Worthy Of The Name Civilization.

Power Is Always Dangerous. Power Attracts The Worst And Corrupts The Best.

Say What You Like About My Bloody Murderous Government,' I Says, 'but Don't Insult Me Poor Bleedin' Country.

If It's Knowledge And Wisdom You Want, Then Seek Out The Company Of Those Who Do Real Work For An Honest Purpose.

If You Feel That You're Not Ready To Die, Never Fear; Nature Will Give You Complete And Adequate Assistance When The Time Comes.

Do Not Burn Yourselves Out. Be As I Am - A Reluctant Enthusiast... A Part-time Crusader, A Half-hearted Fanatic. Save The Other Half Of Yourselves And Your Lives For Pleasure And Adventure.

Man's Deliberate Destruction Of His Own Habitat -- Planet Earth -- Could Serve As A Mighty Theme For A Mighty Book Worthy Of A Modern Melville Or Tolstoy. But Our Best Fictioneers Confine Themselves To Domestic Drama -- Soap Opera With Literary Trimmings.

Good Writing Can Be Defined As Having Something To Say And Saying It Well. When One Has Nothing To Say, One Should Remain Silent. Silence Is Always Beautiful At Such Times.

The World Is What It Is, No Less And No More, And Therein Lies Its Entire And Sufficient Meaning.

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.

It Is The Difference Between Men And Women, Not The Sameness, That Creates The Tension And The Delight.

Balance, That's The Secret. Moderate Extremism. The Best Of Both Worlds.

The Best American Writers Have Come From The Hinterlands -- Mark Twain, Theodore Dreiser, Jack London, Hemingway, Faulkner, Wolfe, Steinbeck. Most Of Them Never Even Went To College.

Our Big Social Institutions Do Not Reflect Human Nature; They Distort It.

Men Have Never Loved One Another Much, For Reasons We Can Readily Understand: Man Is Not A Lovable Animal.

The Tragedy Of Modern War Is That The Young Men Die Fighting Each Other - Instead Of Their Real Enemies Back Home In The Capitals.

I Love America Because It Is A Confused, Chaotic Mess - And I Hope We Can Keep It This Way For At Least Another Thousand Years. The Permissive Society Is The Free Society.

Industrial Tourism Is A Threat To The National Parks. But The Chief Victims Of The System Are The Motorized Tourists. They Are Being Robbed And Robbing Themselves. So Long As They Are Unwilling To Crawl Out Of Their Cars They Will Not Discover The Treasures Of The National Parks And Will Never Escape The Stress And Turmoil Of The Urban-suburban Complexes Which They Had Hoped, Presumably, To Leave Behind For A While.

The City Itself Swung Slowly Toward Us Silent As A Dream. No Sign Of Life But Puffs Of Steam From Skyscraper Chimneys, The Motion Of The Traffic. The Mighty Towers Stood Like Tombstones In A Graveyard, Leaning Against The Sky And Waiting For -- For What? Someday We'll Know.

God Is A Sound People Make When They're Too Tired To Think Anymore.

Running The Big Rapids Is Like Sex: Half The Fun Lies In The Anticipation. Two Thirds Of The Thrill With The Approach. The Remainder Is Only Ecstasy-or Darkness.

Nobody Has So Many Friends That He Can Afford To Lose One.

James Joyce Buried Himself In His Great Work. _finnegan's Wake_ Is His Monument And His Tombstone. A Dead End.

Nothing Could Be Older Than The Daily News, Nothing Deader Than Yesterday's Newspaper.

Why Is It That The Destruction Of Something Created By Humans Is Called Vandalism, Yet The Destruction Of Something Created By God Is Called Development?

Why I Oppose The Nuclear-arms Race: I Prefer The Human Race.

What Is The Purpose Of The Giant Sequoia Tree? The Purpose Of The Giant Sequoia Tree Is To Provide Shade For The Tiny Titmouse.

There Is A Fine Art To Making Enemies And It Requires Diligent Cultivation. It's Not As Easy As It Looks.

The Earth, Like The Sun, Like The Air, Belongs To Everyone - And To No One.

The Response To My Books From My East Coast Friends Has Been Wildly Various, Running The Gamut From 'bad' To 'very Bad.' (is There Another Gamut?)

You Cannot Reshape Human Nature Without Mutilating Human Beings.

Life Is Unfair. And It's Not Fair That Life Is Unfair.

Most Of The Literary Classics Are Worth Reading, If You've Nothing Better To Do.

The Feminists Have A Legitimate Grievance. But So Does Everyone Else.

I Intend To Be Good For The Rest Of My Natural Life -- If I Live That Long.

Without Courage, All Other Virtues Are Useless.

The World Is Older And Bigger Than We Are. This Is A Hard Truth For Some Folks To Swallow.

Love Implies Anger. The Man Who Is Angered By Nothing Cares About Nothing.

I Always Write With My .357 Magnum Handy. Why? Well, You Never Know When God May Try To Interfere.

How To Overthrow The System: Brew Your Own Beer; Kick In Your Tee Vee; Kill Your Own Beef; Build Your Own Cabin And Piss Off The Front Porch Whenever You Bloody Well Feel Like It.

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.

Representative Government Has Broken Down. Our Politicians Represent Not The People Who Vote For Them But The Commercial Interests Who Finance Their Election Campaigns. We Have The Best Politicians That Money Can Buy.

When The Biggest, Richest, Glassiest Buildings In Town Are The Banks, You Know That Town's In Trouble.

Too Many American Authors Have A Servile Streak Where Their Backbone Should Be. Where's Our Latest Nobel Laureate? More Than Likely You'll Find Him In The Rose Garden Kissing The First Lady's Foot.

Sentiment Without Action Is The Ruin Of The Soul.

I'm In Favor Of Animal Liberation. Why? Because I'm An Animal.

Salome Had But Seven Veils; The Artist Has A Thousand.

The "terror" Of The French Revolution Lasted For Ten Years. The Terror That Preceded And Led To It Lasted For A Thousand Years.

Money Confers The Power To Command The Labor Of Others. Love Of Money Is Love Of Power. And Love Of Power Is The Root Of Evil.

My Sole Literary Ambition Is To Write One Good Novel, Then Retire To My Hut In The Desert, Assume The Lotus Position, Compose My Mind And Senses, And Sink Into Meditation, Contemplating My Novel.

Style: There Is Something In Too Much Verbal Felicity (as In Joyce Or Nabokov Or Borges) That Can Betray The Writer Into Technique For The Sake Of Technique.

Put The Park Rangers To Work. Lazy Scheming Loafers, They've Wasted Too Many Years Selling Tickets At Toll Booths And Sitting Behind Desks Filling Out Charts And Tables

All Power Rests On Hierarchy: An Army Is Nothing But A Well-organized Lynch Mob.

Doctrines Like Christianity Or Islam Or Marxism Require Unanimity Of Belief. One Dissenter Casts Doubt On The Creed Of Millions.

Congress Is Always Willing To Appropriate Money For More And Bigger Paved Roads, Anywhere -- Particularly If They Form Loops.

I Am Pleased Enough With The Surfaces - In Fact They Alone Seem To Me To Be Of Much Importance. Such Things For Example As The Grasp Of A Child's Hand In Your Own, The Flavor Of An Apple, The Embrace Of A Friend Or Lover, The Silk Of A Girl's Thigh, The Sunlight On The Rock And Leaves, The Feel Of Music, The Bark Of A Tree, The Abrasion Of Granite And Sand, The Plunge Of Clear Water Into A Pool, The Face Of The Wind - What Else Is There? What Else Do We Need?

Be A Half-assed Crusader, A Part-time Fanatic. Don't Worry To Much About The Fate Of The World. Saving The World Is Only A Hobby. Get Out There And Enjoy The World, Your Girlfriend, Your Boyfriend, Husbands Wives; Climb Mountains, Run Rivers, Get Drunk, Do Whatever You Want To Do While You Can, Before It's Too Late.

There Is Science, Logic, Reason; There Is Thought Verified By Experience. And Then There Is California.

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.

Wilderness Is Not A Luxury But A Necessity Of The Human Spirit, And As Vital To Our Lives As Water And Good Bread. A Civilization Which Destroys What Little Remains Of The Wild, The Spare, The Original, Is Cutting Itself Off From Its Origins And Betraying The Principle Of Civilization Itself.

Abolition Of A Woman's Right To Abortion, When And If She Wants It, Amounts To Compulsory Maternity: A Form Of Rape By The State.

Scientific Method: There's A Madness In The Method.

Scientific Method

Susan Sontag: What She Really Wanted, Throughout Her Career, Was To Grow Up To Be A Frenchman.

It's A Fool's Life, A Rogue's Life, And A Good Life If You Keep Laughing All The Way To The Grave.

Guns Don't Kill People; People Kill People. Of Course, People With Guns Kill More People. But That's Only Natural. It's Hard. But It's Fair.

In The American Southwest, I Began A Lifelong Love Affair With A Pile Of Rock.

Not All Questions Can Be Answered.

The Best Argument For Christianity Is The Gregorian Chant. Listening To That Music, One Can Believe Anything -- While The Music Lasts.

How Can I Be So Evil? It Ain't Easy.

The Hawk's Cry Is As Sharp As Its Beak.

Let The People Walk. Or Ride Horses, Bicycles, Mules, Wild Pigs-anything-but Keep The Automobiles And The Motorcycles And All Their Motorized Relatives Out. We Have Agreed Not To Drive Our Automobiles Into Cathedrals, Concert Halls, Art Museums, Legislative Assemblies, Private Bedrooms And Other Sanctums Of Our Culture; We Should Treat Our National Parks With The Same Deference, For They, Too, Are Holy Places.

Grand Opera Is A Form Of Musical Entertainment For People Who Hate Music.

In Order To Write A Book, It Is Necessary To Sit Down (or Stand Up) And Write. Therein Lies The Difficulty.

Spartacus, Like Jesus, Was Also Crucified By The Romans. And For Equally Good Reasons.

The Missionaries Go Forth To Christianize The Savages - As If The Savages Weren't Dangerous Enough Already.

If America Could Be, Once Again, A Nation Of Self-reliant Farmers, Craftsmen, Hunters, Ranchers, And Artists, Then The Rich Would Have Little Power To Dominate Others. Neither To Serve Nor To Rule: That Was The American Dream.

In The Soviet Union, Government Controls Industry. In The United States, Industry Controls Government. That Is The Principal Structural Difference Between The Two Great Oligarchies Of Our Time.

Tee Vee Football: One Team Wins, One Team Loses -- They Tie -- Who Cares? And Why?

When I Hear The Word 'culture', I Reach For My Checkbook.

The Best Thing About Graduating From The University Was That I Finally Had Time To Sit On A Log And Read A Good Book.

In Art As In Life, Form And Subject, Body And Soul, Are One.

You Long For Success? Start At The Bottom; Dig Down.

Wealth And How To Achieve It: Let Us Define The Wealthy Man As He Who Has Everything He Desires. How To Reach That Happy Condition? Two Ways

There Are Circumstances In Which Suicide Presents A Viable Option; A Workable Alternative; The Only Sensible Solution.

The Ready Availability Of Suicide, Like Sex And Alcohol, Is One Of Life's Basic Consolations.

A Drink A Day Keeps The Shrink Away.

There Is A Deep, Abiding, Unshakable Satisfaction In A Life Of Complete Failure.

The Idea Of Wilderness Needs No Defense. It Only Needs More Defenders. Remaining Silent About The Destruction Of Nature Is An Endorsement Of That Destruction.

It Is Not An Easy Thing To Inflate A Dog.

The Duty Of A Patriot Is To Protect His Country From Its Government.

In Both Metaphysics And Art, Honesty Is The Best Policy. Keep It Clean.

The Death Penalty Would Be Even More Effective, As A Deterrent, If We Executed A Few Innocent People More Often.

I Must Confess That I Know Nothing Whatsoever About True Underlying Reality, Never Having Met Any.

Reason Has Seldom Failed Us Because It Has Seldom Been Tried.

Do I Believe In Ghosts? I Believe In The Ghosts That Haunt The Human Mind.

Love Flowers Best In Openness And Freedom.

Flora And Fauna

Capitalism Sounds Good In Theory But It Just Doesn't Work.

I Am My Brother's Keeper, Says The Chickenshit Liberal. Perhaps He Does Not Realize That He Now Has More Than 2 1/2 Billion Brothers.

What Did Jesus Say To The Headwaiter At The Last Supper? 'separate Checks, Please.'

When A Writer Has Done The Best That He Can Do, He Should Then Withdraw From The Book-writing Business And Take Up An Honest Trade Like Shoe Repair, Cattle Stealing, Or Screwworm Management.

Every Writer Has His Favorite Coterie Of Enemies: Mine Is The East Coast Literati -- Those Prep School Playmates And Their Ivy League Colleagues.

‎"if My Decomposing Carcass Helps Nourish The Roots Of A Juniper Tree Or The Wings Of A Vulture--that Is Immortality Enough For Me. And As Much As Anyone Deserves." E.abbey

Critics Are Like Ticks On A Dog Or Tits On A Motor: Ornamental But Dysfunctional.

Of Course I Litter The Public Highway. Every Chance I Get. After All, It's Not The Beer Cans That Are Ugly; It's The Highway That Is Ugly.

Quantum Mechanics Provides Us With An Approximate, Plausible, Conjectural Explanation Of What Actually Is, Or Was, Or May Be Taking Place Inside A Cyclotron During A Dark Night In February.

The Great Question Of Life Is Not The Question Of Death But The Question Of Life. Fear Of Death Shames Us All.

In Writing, Fidelity To Fact Leads Eventually To The Poetry Of Truth.

From The Point Of View Of A Tapeworm, Man Was Created By God To Serve The Appetite Of The Tapeworm.

The Only Thing Worse Than A Knee-jerk Liberal Is A Knee-pad Conservative.

Knee Jerk Reactions

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.

A True Libertarian Supports Free Enterprise, Opposes Big Business; Supports Local Self-government, Opposes The Nation-state; Supports The National Rifle Association, Opposes The Pentagon.

It Seems Clear At Last That Our Love For The Natural World-nature-is The Only Means By Which We Can Requite God's Obvious Love For It.

If The End Does Not Justify The Means - What Can?

I Have Found Through Trial And Error That I Work Best Under Duress. In Fact I Work Only Under Duress.

Trial And Error

Yes, There Are Plenty Of Heroes And Heroines Everywhere You Look. They Are Not Famous People. They Are Generally Obscure And Modest People Doing Useful Work, Keeping Their Families Together And Taking An Active Part In The Health Of Their Communities, Opposing What Is Evil (in One Way Or Another) And Defending What Is Good. Heroes Do Not Want Power Over Others.

A Crude Meal, No Doubt, But The Best Of All Sauces Is Hunger.

Who Needs Astrology? The Wise Man Gets By On Fortune Cookies.

All Serious Writers Want The Obvious Rewards: Fame, Money, Women, Love -- And Most Of All, An Audience!

It's All Still There In Heart And Soul. The Walk, The Hills, The Sky, The Solitary Pain And Pleasure-they Will Grow Larger, Sweeter, Lovelier In The Days And Years To Come.

Wilderness Is Not A Luxury But A Necessity Of The Human Spirit.

We Live In A Society In Which It Is Normal To Be Sick; And Sick To Be Abnormal.

The National Parks Belong To Everyone. To The People. To All Of Us. The Government Keeps Saying So And Maybe, In This One Case At Least, The Government Is Telling The Truth. Hard To Believe, But Possible.

Literature, Like Anything Else, Can Become A Wearisome Business If You Make A Lifetime Specialty Of It. A Healthy, Wholesome Man Would No More Spend His Entire Life Reading Great Books Than He Would Packing Cookies For Nabisco.

Where All Pretend To Be Thinking Alike, It's Likely That No One Is Thinking At All.

The Gurus Come From The Sickliest Nation On Earth To Tell Us How To Live. And We Pay Them For It.

I Know My Own Nation Best. That's Why I Despise It The Most. And Know And Love My Own People, Too, The Swine. I'm A Patriot. A Dangerous Man.

Homosexuality, Like Androgyny, Might Be An Instinctive Racial Response To Overpopulation, Crowding, And Stress. Both Flourish When Empire Reaches Its Apogee.

A Woman, As Much As A Man, Is Responsible By The Age Of Forty For The Character Of Her Face. But Women, Obeying The Biological Imperative, Strive Harder To Preserve A Youthful Appearance (the Reproductive Look) And Lose It Sooner.

Water, Water, Water....there Is No Shortage Of Water In The Desert But Exactly The Right Amount , A Perfect Ratio Of Water To Rock, Water To Sand, Insuring That Wide Free Open, Generous Spacing Among Plants And Animals, Homes And Towns And Cities, Which Makes The Arid West So Different From Any Other Part Of The Nation. There Is No Lack Of Water Here Unless You Try To Establish A City Where No City Should Be.

As Mark Twain Said, 'i Love Wagner -- If Only They'd Cut Out All That Damned Singing!'

The Highest Treason, The Meanest Treason, Is To Deny The Holiness Of This Little Blue Planet On Which We Journey Through The Cold Void Of Space.

Motherhood Is An Essential, Difficult, And Full-time Job. Women Who Do Not Wish To Be Mothers Should Not Have Babies.

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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