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 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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If stories come to you, care for them. And learn to give them away where they are needed. Sometimes a person needs a story more than food to stay alive.
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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.
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Everything is held together with stories. That is all that is holding us together, stories and compassion.
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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.
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The interior landscape responds to the character and subtlety of the exterior landscape; the shape of the individual mind is affected by the land as it is by genes.
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The wolf exerts a powerful influence on the human imagination. It takes your stare and turns it back on you
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There are simply no answers to some of the great pressing questions.
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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.
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You continue to live them out, making your life a worthy expression of leaning into the light.
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One must live in the middle of contradiction, because if all contradiction were eliminated at once life would collapse.
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Would the last animal, eating garbage and living on the last scrap of land, his mate dead, would he still forgive you?
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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.
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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 -
To put your hands in a river is to feel the chords that bind the earth together.
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One of the great dreams of man must be to find some place between the extremes of nature and civilization where it is possible to live without regret.
BARRY LOPEZ