429 Quotes by Terry Tempest Williams

Artifacts are alive. Each has a voice. They remind us what it means to be human – that it is our nature to survive, to create works of beauty to be resourceful, to be attentive to the world we live in.

By definition, our national parks in all their particularity and peculiarity show us as much about ourselves as the landscapes they honor and protect. They can be seen as holograms of an America born of shadow and light; dimensional; full of contradictions and complexities. Our dreams, our generosities, our cruelties and crimes are absorbed into these parks like water. The poet Rumi says, “Water, stories, the.

I return to the wilderness to remember what I have forgotten, that the world can be wholesome and beautiful, that the harmony and integrity of ecosystems at peace is a mirror to what we have lost.

I have a sequence to my creative life. In spring and fall, I am above ground and commit to community. In the summer, I’m outside. It is a time for family. And in the winter, I am underground. Home. This is when I do my work as a writer – in hibernation. I write with the bears.

Style is like voice, it grows organically from the truth of one’s own life experience. Not in terms of chapters, per se, but in terms of stories. It is the story itself that creates an inherent structure.

Desert strategies are useful: In times of drought, pull your resources inward; when water is scarce, find moisture in seeds; to stay strong and supple, send a taproot down deep; run when required, hide when necessary; when hot go underground; do not fear darkness, it’s where one comes alive.

I have inherited a belief in community, the promise that a gathering of the spirit can both create and change culture.

Our public lands – whether a national park or monument, wildlife refuge, forest or prairie – make each one of us land-rich. It is our inheritance as citizens of a country called America.

Sorrow has a voice. It is the cold scream of silence turned inward.