There are simply no answers to some of the great pressing questions.
BARRY LOPEZThere are simply no answers to some of the great pressing questions.
BARRY LOPEZWe 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 LOPEZThe 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 LOPEZYou 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 LOPEZEverything is held together with stories. That is all that is holding us together, stories and compassion.
BARRY LOPEZOne 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 LOPEZWhen 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 LOPEZThe most intelligent thing we can do is love, not reason.
BARRY LOPEZIt does not demean men to want to be what they imagine the wolf to be, but it does demean them to kill the animal for it.
BARRY LOPEZSometimes a person needs a story more than food to stay alive.
BARRY LOPEZI 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 LOPEZWould the last animal, eating garbage and living on the last scrap of land, his mate dead, would he still forgive you?
BARRY LOPEZThe 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 LOPEZIt is the imagination that gives shape to the universe.
BARRY LOPEZMy function as a writer is to provide an atmosphere in which people can think wisely about what we’re doing on this planet.
BARRY LOPEZThe land gets inside of us; and we must decide one way or another what this means, what we will do about it.
BARRY LOPEZ