There is a certain animal vitality in most of us which carries us through any trouble but the absolutely overwhelming. Only a fool has no sorrow, only an idiot has no grief – but then only a fool and an idiot will let grief and sorrow ride him down into the grave.

— Edward Abbey

Edward Abbey Quotes

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.

— Edward Abbey

Every writer has his favorite coterie of enemies: Mine is the East Coast literati – those prep school playmates and their Ivy League colleagues.

— Edward Abbey

Salome had but seven veils; the artist has a thousand.

— Edward Abbey

In the modern world, all literary art is necessarily political – especially that which pretends not to be.

— Edward Abbey

Critics are like ticks on a dog or tits on a motor: ornamental but dysfunctional.

— Edward Abbey

A critic is to an author as a fungus to an oak.

— Edward Abbey

We live in a time of twin credulities: the hunger for the miraculous combined with a servile awe of science. The mating of the two gives us superstition plus scientism – a Mongoloid metaphysic.

— Edward Abbey

It is always dishonest for a reviewer to review the author instead of the author’s book.

— Edward Abbey

Every man has two vocations: his own and philosophy.

— Edward Abbey

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.

— Edward Abbey

The writer concerned more with technique than truth becomes a technician, not an artist.

— Edward Abbey

All serious writers want the obvious rewards: fame, money, women, love – and most of all, an audience!

— Edward Abbey

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.

— Edward Abbey

There is no trajectory so pathetic as that of an artist in decline.

— Edward Abbey

When the writer has done his best, he then should proceed to do his second best.

— Edward Abbey

Susan Sontag: What she really wanted, throughout her career, was to grow up to be a Frenchman.

— Edward Abbey

How long does it take to write a good book? All of the years that you’ve lived.

— Edward Abbey

My own best books have not been published. In fact, they’ve not even been written yet.

— Edward Abbey

It is true that some of my fiction was based on actual events. But the events took place after the fiction was written.

— Edward Abbey

The ideal kitchen-sink novel: Throw in everything but the kitchen sink. Then add the kitchen sink.

— Edward Abbey
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