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 LOPEZIf 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.
More Barry Lopez Quotes
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The writer works on the inside and the critic works on the outside. I don’t know what it looks like on the outside, sometimes. It’s not that I’m not interested-it’s not where I live. I live inside the story.
BARRY LOPEZ -
My function as a writer is to provide an atmosphere in which people can think wisely about what we’re doing on this planet.
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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 -
It is the imagination that gives shape to the universe.
BARRY LOPEZ -
You continue to live them out, making your life a worthy expression of leaning into the light.
BARRY LOPEZ -
The opposite of love is not hate; it’s indifference. To be indifferent is to not express love.
BARRY LOPEZ -
There’s so much to be afraid of.
BARRY LOPEZ -
real beauty is so deep you have to move into darkness to understand it.
BARRY LOPEZ -
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 -
The land urges us to come around to an understanding of ourselves.
BARRY LOPEZ -
I know of no restorative of heart, body, and soul more effective against hopelessness than the restoration of the Earth.
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Sometimes a person needs a story more than food to stay alive.
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In behaving respectfully toward all that the land contains, it is possible to imagine a stifling ignorance falling away from us.
BARRY LOPEZ -
Everything is held together with stories. That is all that is holding us together, stories and compassion.
BARRY LOPEZ -
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