Edward Abbey

I wouldn't trade a good horse for the best Rolls-Royce ever made -- unless I could trade the Rolls for two good horses.

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.

As a confirmed melancholic, I can testify that the best and maybe only antidote for melancholia is action. However, like most melancholics, I suffer also from sloth.

Each thing in its way, when true to its own character, is equally beautiful. (p 41)

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.

Saving the world was merely a hobby. My *vocation* has been that of_x000D_ inspector of desert water holes.

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.

Anywhere, anytime, I'd sacrifice the finest nuance for a laugh, the most elegant trope for a smile.

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.

If you feel that you must suffer, then plan your suffering carefully -- as you choose your dreams, as you conceive your ancestors.

Some lives are tragic, some ridiculous. Most are both at once.

By the age of eighteen, a human has acquired enough joy and heartache to provide the food of reflection for a century.

We live in the kind of world where courage is the most essential of virtues; without courage, the other virtues are useless.

There are only two kinds of books -- good books and the others. The good are winnowed from the bad through the democracy of time.

I am happy to be a regional writer. My region is the American West, old Mexico, West Virginia, New York, Europe, Australia, the human heart, and the male groin.

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.

Nobody seems more obsessed by diet than our antimaterialist, otherworldly, New Age, spiritual types. But if the material world is merely illusion, an honest guru should as content with Budweiser and bratwurst as with raw carrot juice, tofu, and seaweed slime.

The rich can buy everything but health, virtue, friendship, wit, good looks, love, pride, intelligence, grace, and, if you need it, happiness.

We live in a society in which it is normal to be sick; and sick to be abnormal.

Orthodoxy is a relaxation of the mind accompanied by a stiffening of the heart.

Why do I live in the desert? Because the desert is the *locus Dei*.