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

Barry Lopez

We cannot, of course, save the World because we do not have authority over its parts. We can serve the world though. That is everyone’s calling, to lead a life that helps.
BARRY LOPEZ

Calling Helping World
I lay there knowing something eerie ties us to the world of animals. Sometimes the animals pull you backward into it. You share hunger and fear with them like salt in blood.
BARRY LOPEZ

Animal Blood Eerie
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.
BARRY LOPEZ

Book Confused Thinking
Everything is held together with stories. That is all that is holding us together, stories and compassion.
BARRY LOPEZ

Compassion Heart Love
The attempt to close the gap between what is known and what IS, is the temptation behind the apple in Genesis.
BARRY LOPEZ

Apples Attempt Gap Temptation
The land gets inside of us; and we must decide one way or another what this means, what we will do about it.
BARRY LOPEZ

Land Mean Way
There’s so much to be afraid of.
BARRY LOPEZ

Afraid Ashamed Much
real beauty is so deep you have to move into darkness to understand it.
BARRY LOPEZ

Darkness Moving Real
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.
BARRY LOPEZ

Stories Trying Typewriters
One must live in the middle of contradiction, because if all contradiction were eliminated at once life would collapse.
BARRY LOPEZ

Contradiction Inspirational Life Middle
You can’t learn anything from saguaro cactus, from ocotillo. They are just passing through; their roots, their much heralded dormancy in the dry season, these are only illusions of permanence. They know even less than you do.
BARRY LOPEZ

Education Learning Time
To put your hands in a river is to feel the chords that bind the earth together.
BARRY LOPEZ

Hands Nature Rivers
If there is a stage at which an individual life becomes truly adult, it must be when one grasps the irony in its unfolding and accepts responsibility for a life lived in the midst of such paradox.
BARRY LOPEZ

Adults Inspirational Life Responsibility
The land is like poetry: it is inexplicably coherent, it is transcendent in its meaning, and it has the power to elevate a consideration of human life.
BARRY LOPEZ

Consideration Human Land Life
The wolf exerts a powerful influence on the human imagination. It takes your stare and turns it back on you
BARRY LOPEZ

Imagination Influence Powerful
We simply do not understand our place in the universe and have not the courage to admit it.
BARRY LOPEZ

Admit Courage Place Universe

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

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

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Popular Authors

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