Paradise for a happy man lies in his own good nature.

#Abbey #EdAbbey #EdwardAbbey

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

#Abbey #EdAbbey #EdwardAbbey

Recorded history is largely an account of the crimes and disasters committed by banal little men at the levers of imperial machines.

#Abbey #EdAbbey #EdwardAbbey

There is a wine called Easy Days and Mellow Nights, well-known on the outskirts of the Navajo reservation. It is an economical wine, fortified with the best of intentions, and I recommend it to every serious wino.

#Abbey #EdAbbey #EdwardAbbey

I look forward to the day when all river runners carry, as part of their standard equipment, a surface-to-air missile launcher armed with heat-seeking missiles.

#Abbey #EdAbbey #EdwardAbbey

Music is a savage art, a measured madness.

#Abbey #EdAbbey #EdwardAbbey

Let us praise the noble turkey vulture: No one envies him; he harms nobody; and he contemplates our little world from a most serene and noble height.

#Abbey #EdAbbey #EdwardAbbey

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

#Abbey #EdAbbey #EdwardAbbey

The tragedy of modern war is that the young men die fighting each other - instead of their real enemies back home in the capitals.

#Abbey #EdAbbey #EdwardAbbey

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.

#Abbey #EdAbbey #EdwardAbbey

#Great #Cloister #Westminster #Abbey #London #England

The night I filled an inside straight: Even a blind hog's gonna root up an acorn once in a while.

#Abbey #EdAbbey #EdwardAbbey

Anarchism is not a romantic fable but the hardheaded realization, based on five thousand years of experience, that we cannot entrust the management of our lives to kings, priests, politicians, generals, and county commissioners.

#Abbey #EdAbbey #EdwardAbbey

One definite advantage of being a conservative is that you never have to trouble your conscience about selling out; a conservative is a sell-out from the beginning, an ass-kisser and power sycophant by definition.

#Abbey #EdAbbey #EdwardAbbey

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.

#Abbey #EdAbbey #EdwardAbbey

Night and day the river flows. If time is the mind of space, the River is the soul of the desert. Brave boatmen come, they go, they die, the voyage flows on forever. We are all canyoneers.

#Abbey #EdAbbey #EdwardAbbey

Who needs astrology? The wise man gets by on fortune cookies.

#Abbey #EdAbbey #EdwardAbbey

The best argument for Christianity is the Gregorian chant. Listening to that music, one can believe anything -- while the music lasts.

#Abbey #EdAbbey #EdwardAbbey

Baseball serves as a good model for democracy in action: Every player is equally important and each has a chance to be a hero.

#Abbey #EdAbbey #EdwardAbbey

Only a fool would leave the enjoyment of rainbows to the opticians. Or give the science of optics the last word on the matter.

#Abbey #EdAbbey #EdwardAbbey