Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Why this cult of wilderness?... because we like the taste of freedom; because we like the smell of danger.
Anarchism? You bet your sweet betsy. The only cure for the ills of democracy is more democracy. Much more.
Nothing could be more reckless than to base one's moral philosophy on the latest pronouncements of science.
Reply to Plato: I seen horses I seen cows I haint never yet seen horsiness nor that there bovinity neither.
In the modern world, all literary art is necessarily political -- especially that which pretends not to be.
The missionaries go forth to Christianize the savages - as if the savages weren't dangerous enough already.
In order to write a book, it is necessary to sit down (or stand up) and write. Therein lies the difficulty.
In the land of bleating sheep and braying jackasses, one brave and honest man is bound to create a scandal.
Say what you like about my bloody murderous government,' I says, 'but don't insult me poor bleedin' country.
A writer must be hard to live with: when not working he is miserable, and when he is working he is obsessed.
In the afternoon I watch the clouds drift past the bald peak of Mount Tukuhnikivats. (Someone has to do it.)
Society is like a stew. If you don't stir it up every once in a while then a layer of scum floats to the top.
I choose to listen to the river for a while, thinking river thoughts, before joining the night and the stars.
For this world that men have made, none of us is bad enough. For the world that made us, none is good enough.
The function of an ideal is not to be realized but, like that of the North Star, to serve as a guiding point.
In history-as-politics, the 'future' is that vacuum in time waiting to be filled with the antics of statesmen.
The great question of life is not the question of death but the question of life. Fear of death shames us all.
James Joyce buried himself in his great work. _Finnegan's Wake_ is his monument and his tombstone. A dead end.
A man without passion would be like a body without a soul. Or even more grotesque, like a soul without a body.
Hierarchical institutions are like giant bulldozers -- obedient to the whim of any fool who takes the controls.
The rifle and handgun are 'equalizers' -- the weapons of a democracy. Tanks and bombers represent dictatorship.
The true, unacknowledged purpose of capital punishment is to inspire fear and awe -- fear and awe of the State.
No man is wise enough to be another man's master. Each man's as good as the next -- if not a damn sight better.
All we have, it seems to me, is the beauty of art and nature and life, and the love which that beauty inspires.
My Aunt Ida at age eighty-three: 'Yeah,' she said, 'I'll be dead pretty soon. And frankly, I don't give a damn.'
Filling out the form: Race? Human. Religion? Paiute. Occupation? Criminal anarchy. Hobbies? Survival with honor.
The death penalty would be even more effective, as a deterrent, if we executed a few innocent people more often.
I do not believe in personal immortality; it seems so unnecessary. Show me one man who deserves to live forever.
There has never yet been a human society worthy of the name of civilization. Civilization remains a remote ideal.
If it's knowledge and wisdom you want, then seek out the company of those who do real work for an honest purpose.
The one great gift to humankind from our nuclear physicists has been the nuclear bomb. How can we ever thank them?
The ideal society can be described, quite simply, as that in which no man has the power of means to coerce others.
Opera: I like it, except for all those howling sopranos and caterwauling tenors. (Why can't tenors sing like men?)
Art, science, philosophy, religion -- each offers at best only a crude simplification of actual living experience.
I was once invited to take part in a heroic, possibly fatal enterprise, but I declined, mainly on account of sloth.
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.
One man alone can be pretty dumb sometimes, but for real bona fide stupidity, there ain't nothing can beat teamwork.
Indolence and melancholy: Each generates the other. If one can speak of such feeble passions as generating anything.
I hate intellectual discussion. When I hear the words 'phenomenology' or 'structuralism', I reach for my buck knife.
My notion of a great novel is something like a five-hundred-page shaggy-dog story, with only the punch line omitted.
One man alone can be pretty dumb sometimes, but for real bona fide stupidity, there ain't nothin' can beat teamwork.
In all of nature, there is no sound more pleasing than that of a hungry animal at its feed. Unless you are the food.
Climbing K2 or floating the Grand Canyon in an inner tube; there are some things one would rather have done than do.
Jane Austen: Getting into her books is like getting in bed with a cadaver. Something vital is lacking; namely, life.
But it is a writer's duty to write and speak and record the truth, always the truth, no matter whom may be offended.
A society that feels itself too poor to afford the preservation of wilderness is not worthy of the name civilization.
The best thing about graduating from the university was that I finally had time to sit on a log and read a good book.
And if the computer gives you any back talk, pour some well-sugared office coffee into its evil little silicon brain.
Motherhood is an essential, difficult, and full-time job. Women who do not wish to be mothers should not have babies.
Defiance is beautiful. The defiance of power, especially great or overwhelming power, exalts and glorifies the rebel.