104 Quotes by Barry López

Quando, dalle prigioni delle nostre città, volgiamo lo sguardo alla wilderness, quando il nostro intelletto sperimenta il privilegio di condurre una vita scevra da convenzioni insensate o senza colpe né sotterfugi, in breve, una vita integra, credo che possiamo rivolgerci al lupo.In esso percepiamo il coraggio, la resistenza e un modo di vivere franco e leale; percepiamo che è in armonia con l’universo mentre noi non lo siamo ancora.

No culture has yet solved the dilemma each has faced with the growth of a conscious mind: how to live a moral and compassionate existence when one is fully aware of the blood, the horror inherent in all life, when one finds darkness not only in one’s own culture but within oneself.

Of the sciences today, quantum physics alone seems to have found its way back to an equitable relationship with metaphors, those fundamental tools of the imagination. The other sciences are occasionally so bound by rational analysis, or so wary of metaphor, that they recognize and denounce anthropomorphism as a kind of intellectual cancer, instead of employing it as a tool of comparative inquiry, which is perhaps the only way the mind works, that parallelism we finally call narrative.

We simply do not understand our place in the universe and have not the courage to admit it.

My faith is in my colleagues. And when I meet other writers, journalists, who've been doing this for a long time, trying to make us aware of what it is that we're living in, I put my faith in those people.

My function as a writer is to provide an atmosphere in which people can think wisely about what we're doing on this planet.

People think that if you've written a book and somebody's given you a pat on the back then, you know, it's all - you're all settled, you know? You're going to be fine. I know that if I'm not confused, and really afraid, my work isn't going to be any good.

When I sit at that typewriter, I have to be frightened of what I'm trying to do. I'm frightened by my own belief that I can actually get a story down on paper.

You continue to live them out, making your life a worthy expression of leaning into the light.