37 quotes found
Poet · American · 1930
American poet (born 1930)
“True affluence is not needing anything.”
“Nature is not a place to visit. It is home.”
“In Western Civilization, our elders are books.”
“When the mind is exhausted of images, it invents its own.”
“I admire Gary Snyder and his ecological commitment very much.”
“But if you do know what is taught by plants and weather, you are in on the gossip and can feel truly at home. The sum of a field's forces [become] what we call very loosely the 'spirit of the place...”
“I have a friend who feels sometimes that the world is hostile to human life--he says it chills us and kills us. But how could we be were it not for this planet that provided our very shape? Two con...”
“If we are here for any good purpose at all (other than collating texts, running rivers, and learning the stars), I suppose it is to entertain the rest of nature. A gang of sexy primate clowns. All ...”
“Here is perhaps the most delicious turn that comes out of thinking about politics from the standpoint of place: anyone of any race, language, religion, or origin is welcome, as long as they live we...”
“The other side of the "sacred" is the sight of your beloved in the underworld, dripping with maggots.”
“The Government finally decidedTo wage the war all-out. Defeat is Un-American. And they took to the air,Their women beside themin bouffant hairdosputting nail-polish on thegunship cannon-buttons.And...”
“Goal: Clean air, clean clear-running rivers, the presence of Pelican and Osprey and Gray Whale in our lives; salmon and trout in our streams; unmuddied language and good dreams.”
“Will be but corpses dressed in frocks, who cannot speak to birds or rocks.”
“I see a vision of a great rucksack revolution thousands or even millions of young Americans wandering around with rucksacks, going up to mountains to pray, making children laugh and old men glad, m...”
“In the 40,000 year time scale we're all the same people. We're all equally primitive, give or take two or three thousand years here or a hundred years there.”
“The Buddha taught that all life is suffering. We might also say that life, being both attractive and constantly dangerous, is intoxicating and ultimately toxic. 'Toxic' comes from toxicon, Pendell ...”
“Find your place on the planet. Dig in, and take responsibility from there.”
“As a poet I hold the most archaic values on earth. They go back to the Neolithic: the fertility of the soil, the magic of animals, the power-vision in solitude, the terrifying initiation and rebirt...”
