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Under The Desert Sun, In The Dogmatic Clarity, The Fables Of Theology And The Myths Of Classical Philosophy Dissolve Like Mist. The Air Is Clean, The Rock Cuts Cruelly Into Flesh; Shatter The Rock And The Odor Of Flint Rises To Your Nostrils, Bitter And Sharp. Whirlwinds Dance Across The Salt Flats, A Pillar Of Dust By Day; The Thornbush Breaks Into Flame At Night. What Does It Mean? It Means Nothing. It Is As It Is And Has No Need For Meaning. The Desert Lies Beneath And Soars Beyond Any Possible Human Qualification. Therefore, Sublime.

-Edward Abbey

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Under The Desert Sun,

Edward Abbey

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Under The Desert Sun, In The Dogmatic Clarity, The Fables Of Theology And The Myths Of Classical Philosophy Dissolve Like Mist. The Air Is Clean, The Rock Cuts Cruelly Into Flesh; Shatter The Rock And The Odor Of Flint Rises To Your Nostrils, Bitter And Sharp. Whirlwinds Dance Across The Salt Flats, A Pillar Of Dust By Day; The Thornbush Breaks Into Flame At Night. What Does It Mean? It Means Nothing. It Is As It Is And Has No Need For Meaning. The Desert Lies Beneath And Soars Beyond Any Possible Human Qualification. Therefore, Sublime.

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

A House Built On Greed Cannot Long Endure.

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.

Why Do I Live In The Desert? Because The Desert Is The *locus Dei*.

I Despise My Own Nation Most. Because I Know It Best. Because I Still Love It, Suffering From Hope. For Me, That's Patrotism.

Jack Kerouac, Like A Sick Refrigerator, Worked Too Hard At Keeping Cool And Died On His Mama's Lap From Alcohol And Infantilism.

The Writer Concerned More With Technique Than Truth Becomes A Technician, Not An Artist.

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.

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

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

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

When The Writer Has Done His Best, He Then Should Proceed To Do His Second Best.

Let Us Hope Our Weapons Are Never Needed - But Do Not Forget What The Common People Of This Nation Knew When They Demanded The Bill Of Rights: An Armed Citizenry Is The First Defense, The Best Defense, And The Final Defense Against Tyranny.

As War And Government Prove, Insanity Is The Most Contagious Of Diseases.

Music Is A Savage Art, A Measured Madness.

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.

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

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

Trial And Error

A Patriot Must Always Be Ready To Defend His Country Against His Government.

It May Be True That There Are No Atheists In Foxholes. But You Don't Find Many Christians There, Either. Or, About As Many Of One As The Other.

The Desert Wears... A Veil Of Mystery. Motionless And Silent It Evokes In Us An Elusive Hint Of Something Unknown, Unknowable, About To Be Revealed. Since The Desert Does Not Act It Seems To Be Waiting -- But Waiting For What?

Of All Bores, The Worst Is The Sparkling Bore.

There Is No Force More Potent In The Modern World Than Stupidity Fueled By Greed.

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

Scientific Method

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

In The Land Of Bleating Sheep And Braying Jackasses, One Brave And Honest Man Is Bound To Create A Scandal.

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.

When I Write "paradise" I Mean Not Only Apple Trees And Golden Women But Also Scorpions And Tarantulas And Flies, Rattlesnakes And Gila Monsters, Sandstorms, Volcanoes And Earthquakes, Bacteria And Bear, Cactus, Yucca, Bladderweed, Ocotillo And Mesquite, Flash Floods And Quicksand, And Yes - Disease And Death And The Rotting Of Flesh.

Disease And Death

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

All Forms Of Government Are Pernicious, Including Good Government.

Baseball Serves As A Good Model For Democracy In Action: Every Player Is Equally Important And Each Has A Chance To Be A Hero.

Anarchism Is Democracy Taken Seriously.

It Is Not Enough To Understand The Natural World; The Point Is To Defend And Preserve It.

A City Man Is A Home Anywhere, For All Big Cities Are Much Alike. But A Country Man Has A Place Where He Belongs, Where He Always Returns, And Where, When The Time Comes, He Is Willing To Die.

In Social Affairs, I'm An Optimist. I Really Do Believe That Our Military- Industrial Civilization Will Soon Collapse.

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

Wilderness And Motors Are Incompatible And The Former Can Best Be Experienced, Understood And Enjoyed When The Machines Are Left Behind Where They Belong -- On The Superhighways And In The Parking Lots, On The Reservoirs And In The Marinas.

Heaven Is Home. Utopia Is Here. Nirvana Is Now.

Indolence And Melancholy: Each Generates The Other. If One Can Speak Of Such Feeble Passions As Generating Anything.

Most Academic Economists Know Nothing Of Economy. In Fact, They Know Little Of Anything.

Are People More Important Than The Grizzly Bear? Only From The Point Of View Of Some People.

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.

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.

Those Who Fear Death Most Are Those Who Enjoy Life Least.

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.

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

I've Wrecked And Ravaged Half My Life In The Pursuit Of Women, And I Suffer The Pangs Of About Seventeen Regrets -- The Seventeen Who Got Away.

I Took The Other Road, All Right, But Only Because It Was The Easy Road For Me, The Way I Wanted To Go. If I've Encountered Some Unnecessary Resistance That's Because Most Of The Traffic Is Going The Other Way.

The Artist's Job? To Be A Miracle Worker: Make The Blind See, The Dull Feel, The Dead To Live.

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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?

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The Consolation Of Reading Biography: Most Great Men Have Led Lives Even More Miserable Than Our Own.

Saving The World Was Merely A Hobby. My *vocation* Has Been That Of Inspector Of Desert Water Holes.

Is There A God? Who Knows? Is There An Angry Unicorn On The Dark Side Of The Moon?

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.

It May Be True That My Desk Here Is Really 'nothing But' A Transient Eddy Of Electrons In The Flux Of Universal Process. Nevertheless, I Find That It Continues To Support My Feet, My Revolver, And My Cigars All Day Long. What Happens When My Back Is Turned I Don't Know. Or Much Care. That's No Concern Of Mine.

My Notion Of A Great Novel Is Something Like A Five-hundred-page Shaggy-dog Story, With Only The Punch Line Omitted.

There Is No Trajectory So Pathetic As That Of An Artist In Decline.

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.

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

Metaphysics Is A Cobweb That The Mind Weaves Around Things.

Is The Archbishop's Blessing Any More Meaningful Than The Politician's Handshake? The Come, They Go, With Bigger Things Than Us On Their Minds.

Opera: I Like It, Except For All Those Howling Sopranos And Caterwauling Tenors. (why Can't Tenors Sing Like Men?)

In The Modern Technoindustrial Culture, It Is Possible To Proceed From Infancy Into Senility Without Ever Knowing Manhood.

Where All Think Alike There Is Little Danger Of Innovation.

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A Man Without Passion Would Be Like A Body Without A Soul. Or Even More Grotesque, Like A Soul Without A Body.

I Believe That There Is A Kind Of Poetry, Even A Kind Of Truth, In Simple Fact.

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.

If There's Anyone Still Present Whom I've Failed To Insult . . . I Apologize.

Generally Speaking, It's A Matter Of Only Mild Intellectual Interest To Me Whether The Earth Goes Around The Sun Or The Sun Goes Around The Earth. In Fact, I Don't Care A Rat's Ass Either Way.

We Judge Individual Man And Women As We Do Nations And Races -- By The Character Of Their Achievement And By Their Achievement Of Character.

A Pretty Girl Can Do No Wrong.

The Tank, The B-52, The Fighter-bomber, The State-controlled Police And Military Are The Weapons Of Dictatorship. The Rifle Is The Weapon Of Democracy. Not For Nothing Was The Revolver Called An "equalizer."

May Your Trails Be Crooked, Winding, Lonesome, Dangerous, Leading To The Most Amazing View. May Your Mountains Rise Into And Above The Clouds.

One Must Be Reasonable In One's Demands On Life. For Myself, All That I Ask Is: (1) Accurate Information; (2) Coherent Knowledge; (3) Deep Understanding; (4) Infinite Loving Wisdom; (5) No More Kidney Stones, Please.

Deep Understanding

Books Are Like Eggs -- Best When Fresh.

Paradise Is The Here And Now, The Actual, Tangible, Dogmatically Real Earth On Which We Stand. Yes, God Bless America, The Earth Upon Which We Stand.

Most Of My Wandering In The Desert I've Done Alone. Not So Much From Choice As From Necessity - I Generally Prefer To Go Into Places Where No One Else Wants To Go. I Find That In Contemplating The Natural World My Pleasure Is Greater If There Are Not Too Many Others Contemplating It With Me, At The Same Time.

Taxation: How The Sheep Are Shorn.

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.

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.

For This World That Men Have Made, None Of Us Is Bad Enough. For The World That Made Us, None Is Good Enough.

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

A Man's Duty? To Be Ready -- With Rifle Or Rood -- To Defend His Home When The Showdown Comes.

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

The Greater Your Dreams, The More Terrible Your Nightmares.

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

If There's Anything I Hate, It's The Vibraphone. And The Cha-cha-cha. And Latin Rhythms Generally.

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

The World Of Employer And Employee, Like That Of Master And Slave, Debases Both.

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

How Did Haydn And Mozart Produce Such Vast Quantities Of Formally Perfect Art? They Worked From A Perfect Formula. In Music, Beethoven Was The Great Emancipator.

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.

In History-as-politics, The 'future' Is That Vacuum In Time Waiting To Be Filled With The Antics Of Statesmen.

Why The Critics, Like A Flock Of Ducks, Always Move In Perfect Unison: Their Authority With The Public Depends Upon An Appearance Of Unanimous Agreement. One Dissenting Voice Would Shatter The Whole Fragile Structure.

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.

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

Tofu And Futons. The Adepts Of Orientalism Seem To Spend Most Of Their Lives Reclining. They Can't Quite Summon The Energy To Crawl Up Onto A Chair. Even Their Yogic Exercises Are Carried Out In A Prone Or Sitting Position.

I'm Happy To Respect Authority When It's Genuine Authority, Based On Moral Or Intellectual Or Even Technical Superiority. I'm Eager To Follow A Hero If We Can Find One. But I Tend To Resist Or Evade Any Kind Of Authority Based Merely On The Power To Coerce. Government, For Example. The Army Tried To Train Us To Salute The Uniform, Not The Man. Failed. I Will Salute The Man, Maybe, If I Think He's Worthy Of It, But I Don't Salute Uniforms Anymore.

A Rancher Is A Farmer Who Farms The Public Lands With A Herd Of Four-legged Lawn Mowers.

Apuleius Married A Rich Widow, Then Wrote _the Golden Ass_.

Nothing Can Excel A Few Days In Jail For Giving A Young Man Or Woman A Quick Education In The Basis Of Industrial Society.

Trout Fishing. One Must Be A Stickler For Proper Form. Use Nothing But #4 Blasting Caps, Or A Hand Grenade, If Handy, Or At A Pool Well-lined With Stone, One Blast From A .44 Magnum Will Bring A Few Stunned Brookies Quietly To The Surface.

I Wouldn't Trade A Good Horse For The Best Rolls-royce Ever Made -- Unless I Could Trade The Rolls For Two Good Horses.

In Social Institutions, The Whole Is Always Less Than The Sum Of Its Parts. There Will Never Be A State As Good As Its People, Or A Church Worthy Of Its Congregation, Or A University Equal To Its Faculty And Students.

Beware Of Your Wishes: They Will Probably Come True.

Some Lives Are Tragic, Some Ridiculous. Most Are Both At Once.

Art, Science, Philosophy, Religion -- Each Offers At Best Only A Crude Simplification Of Actual Living Experience.

Our Modern Industrial Economy Takes A Mountain Covered With Trees, Lakes, Running Streams And Transforms It Into A Mountain Of Junk, Garbage, Slime Pits, And Debris.

The Nuclear Bomb Took All The Fun Out Of War.

If A Man’s Imagination Were Not So Weak, So Easily Tired, If His Capacity For Wonder Not So Limited, He Would Abandon Forever Such Fantasies Of The Supernal. He Would Learn To Perceive In Water, Leaves And Silence More Than Sufficient Of The Absolute And Marvelous, More Than Enough To Console Him For The Loss Of The Ancient Dream.

When A Man Must Be Afraid To Drink Freely From His Country's River And Streams That Country Is No Longer Fit To Live In.

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

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Proust Again: One Can Only Wish That A Man With Such Powers Of Total Recall Had Led A Less Tedious Life, Moved Among Somewhat Livelier Circles.

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

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The Rebel Is Doomed To A Violent Death. The Rest Of Us Can Look Forward To Sedated Expiration In A Coma Inside An Oxygen Tent, With Tubes Inserted In Every Bodily Orifice.

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

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A Life Without Tragedy Would Not Be Worth Living.

Only A Fool Is Astonished By The Foolishness Of Mankind.

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

The One Great Gift To Humankind From Our Nuclear Physicists Has Been The Nuclear Bomb. How Can We Ever Thank Them?

Any Hack Can Safely Rail Away At Foreign Powers Beyond The Sea; But A Good Writer Is A Critic Of The Society He Lives In.

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

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In All Of Nature, There Is No Sound More Pleasing Than That Of A Hungry Animal At Its Feed. Unless You Are The Food.

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The World Exists For Its Own Sake, Not For Ours. Swallow *that* Pill!

Men Love Their Ideas More Than Their Lives. And The More Preposterous The Idea, The More Eager They Are To Die For It. And To Kill For It.

A Man Without A Horse Is Like A Man Without A Weapon: Stunted And Naked.

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Without Courage, All Other Virtues Are Useless.

Truth Is Always The Enemy Of Power. And Power The Enemy Of Truth.

We Are Kindred All Of Us, Killer And Victim, Predator And Prey, Me And The Sly Coyote, The Soaring Buzzard, The Elegant Gopher Snake, And Trembling Cottontail, The Foul Worms That Feed On Our Entrails; All Of Them, All Of Us. Long Live Diversity, Long Live The Earth!

Each Thing In Its Way, When True To Its Own Character, Is Equally Beautiful. (p 41)

The Author: An Imaginary Person Who Writes Real Books.

It Is Not Death Or Dying That Is Tragic, But Rather To Have Existed Without Fully Participating In Life- That Is The Deepest Personal Tragedy.

Paradise For A Happy Man Lies In His Own Good Nature.

The Function Of An Ideal Is Not To Be Realized But, Like That Of The North Star, To Serve As A Guiding Point.

Girls: I Never Wanted Them All. Just All The Ones I Wanted.

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

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

My Cousin Elroy Spent Seven Years As An Ibm Taper Staring At Think Signs On The Walls Before He Finally Got A Good Idea: He Quit.

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.

Married Couples Who Quarrel Bitterly Every Day May Really Need Each Other As Deeply As Those Who Appear To Be Desperately In Love.

I Am An Enemy Of The State. But Isn't Everyone?

One Day In Dipstick, Nebraska, Or Landfill, Oklahoma, Is Worth More To Me Than An Eternity In Dante's Plastic Paradiso, Or Yeats's Gold-plated Byzantium.

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 Thought Of The Wilderness We Had Left Behind Us, Open To Sea And Sky, Joyous In Its Plenitude And Simplicity, Perfect Yet Vulnerable, Unaware Of What Is Coming, Defended By Nothing, Guarded By No One.

Those Who Dream Of The Joys Of Living In A Space Colony Should Live In A Space Colony.

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