Gary Snyder Quotes - Page 3

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• What is any religion? A little ritual, a little superstition, and some magic. It's not a strictly spiritual affair; it has psychological roles to fulfill. You might not want it to be a religion based on your own experience but that's like wanting to clean up your dreams

  Gary Snyder

  Dream, Spiritual, Magic

  8 Copy quote

• Being the Stream Meditation is not just a rest or retreat from the turmoil of the stream or the impurity of the world. It is a way of being the stream, so that one can be at home in both the white water and the eddies. Meditation may take one out of the world, but it also puts one totally into it.

  Gary Snyder

  Home, White, Water

  16 Copy quote

• In Paul Friedrich's book Proto-Indo-European Trees he identifies the "semantic primitives" of the Indo-European tribe of languages through a group of words that have not changed much through twelve thousand years - and those are tree names: especially birch, willow, adler, elm, ash, apple and beech (bher, wyt, alysos, ulmo, os, abul, bhago). Seed syllables, bija, of the life of the west.

  Gary Snyder

  Book, Years, Names

  Gary Snyder (2010). “The Practice of the Wild”, p.71, Counterpoint Press

  17 Copy quote

• I pledge allegiance to the soil
  of Turtle Island,
  and to the beings who thereon dwell
  one ecosystem
  in diversity
  under the sun
  With joyful interpenetratio n for all.

  Gary Snyder

  Islands, Turtles, Ecosystems

  Gary Snyder, Jim Harrison (2010). “The Etiquette of Freedom: Gary Snyder, Jim Harrison, and the Practice of the Wild”, p.76, Counterpoint Press

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• All this new stuff goes on top turn it over, turn it over wait and water down from the dark bottom turn it inside out let it spread through Sift down even. Watch it sprout. A mind like compost.

  Gary Snyder

  Dark, Water, Waiting

  12 Copy quote

• Clambering up the Cold Mountain path, The Cold Mountain trail goes on and on: The long gorge choked with scree and boulders, The wide creek, the mist-blurred grass. The moss is slippery, though there's been no rain The pine sings, but there's no wind. Who can leap the world's ties And sit with me among the white clouds?

  Gary Snyder

  Rain, Clouds, Wind

  Gary Snyder (2010). “Riprap and Cold Mountain Poems”, p.46, Counterpoint Press

  52 Copy quote

• A reading is a kind of communion. The poet articulates the semi-known for the tribe.

  Gary Snyder

  Reading, Tribes, Kind

  Gary Snyder, William Scott McLean (1980). “The Real Work: Interviews & Talks, 1964-1979”, p.5, New Directions Publishing

  5 Copy quote

• I never did know exactly what was meant by the term "The Beats," but let's say that the original meeting, association, comradeship of Allen Ginsberg, myself, Michael McClure, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Philip Whalen, who's not here, Lew Welch, who's dead, Gregory Corso, for me, to a somewhat lesser extent (I never knew Gregory as well as the others) did embody a criticism and a vision which we shared in various ways, and then went our own ways for many years.

  Gary Snyder

  Years, Vision, Criticism

  "The Beat Vision". Book by Arthur Knight, 1986.

  13 Copy quote

• Zen aims at freedom but its practice is disciplined.

  Gary Snyder

  Practice, Aim

  Gary Snyder (1969). “Earth House Hold”, p.51, New Directions Publishing

  7 Copy quote

• All those years and their moments— Crackling bacon, slamming car doors, Poems tried out on friends, Will be one more archive, One more shaky text.

  Gary Snyder

  Doors, Years, Car

  Gary Snyder, Jim Harrison (2010). “The Etiquette of Freedom: Gary Snyder, Jim Harrison, and the Practice of the Wild”, p.117, Counterpoint Press

  7 Copy quote

• The Buddha taught that all life is suffering. We might also say that life, being both attractive and constantly dangerous, is intoxicating and ultimately toxic. 'Toxic' comes from toxicon, Pendell tells us, with a root meaning of 'a poisoned arrow.' All organic life is struck by the arrows of real and psychic poisons. This is understood by any true, that is to say, not self-deluding, spiritual path.

  Gary Snyder

  Spiritual, Real, Self

  7 Copy quote

• Lay down these words Before your mind like rocks. placed solid, by hands In choice of place, set Before the body of the mind in space and time: Solidity of bark, leaf, or wall riprap of things: Cobble of milky way. straying planets, These poems, people, lost ponies with Dragging saddles -- and rocky sure-foot trails. The worlds like an endless four-dimensional Game of Go. ants and pebbles In the thin loam, each rock a word a creek-washed stone Granite: ingrained with torment of fire and weight Crystal and sediment linked hot all change, in thoughts, As well as things.

  Gary Snyder

  Wall, Fire, Space

  Gary Snyder (1992). “No nature: new and selected poems”, Pantheon

  15 Copy quote

• Poetry a riprap on the slick rock of metaphysics

  Gary Snyder

  Rocks, Poetry, Slick

  Gary Snyder (1978). “Myths & Texts”, p.48, New Directions Publishing

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• Grandfather Space. The Mind is his Wife

  Gary Snyder

  Stars, Space, Wife

  Gary Snyder (1974). “Turtle Island”, p.25, New Directions Publishing

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• I thought, that day I started, I sure would hate to do this all my life, And dammit, that’s just what I’ve gone and done.

  Gary Snyder

  Hate, Gone, Done

  Gary Snyder, Jim Harrison (2010). “The Etiquette of Freedom: Gary Snyder, Jim Harrison, and The Practice of the Wild”, p.49, Counterpoint

  7 Copy quote

• O, ah! The awareness of emptiness brings forth a heart of compassion!

  Gary Snyder

  Heart, Compassion, Emptiness

  Gary Snyder (2009). “Mountains and Rivers Without End: Poem”, p.151, Counterpoint

  8 Copy quote

• I recalled when I worked in the woods and the bars of Madras, Oregon. That short-haired joy and roughness America your stupidity. I could almost love you again.

  Gary Snyder

  Love You, Oregon, America

  Gary Snyder (1992). “No nature: new and selected poems”, Pantheon

  7 Copy quote

• Clouds sink down the hills Coffee is hot again. The dog Turns and turns about, stops and sleeps.

  Gary Snyder

  Dog, Coffee, Sleep

  Gary Snyder (2010). “Riprap and Cold Mountain Poems”, p.17, Counterpoint Press

  9 Copy quote

• Burning the small dead branches broke from beneath thick spreading whitebark pine. A hundred summers snowmelt rock and air hiss in a twisted bough.

  Gary Snyder

  Summer, Rocks, Air

  Gary Snyder (1971). “The Back Country”, p.13, New Directions Publishing

  6 Copy quote

• Like, when we did Parliament and Funkadelic and Bootsy, it was actually one thing. But there were so many people that you could split them up into different groups. And then, when we went out on tour and they [the record companies] would see us all up there together - we had five, six guitars playing at one time, not including the bass! -, they said: "Wait a minute, that's just one whole group, selling different names!" But it wasn't - we had enough people in the group that each member would have a section to be another group. So now we're finally starting to get them to understand that.

  Gary Snyder

  Guitar, Names, People

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• If, after obtaining Buddhahood, anyone in my land
  gets tossed in jail on a vagrancy rap, may I
  not attain highest perfect enlightenment.

  Gary Snyder

  Rap, Land, Jail

  Gary Snyder (1978). “Myths & Texts”, p.45, New Directions Publishing

  6 Copy quote

• In the 40,000 year time scale we're all the same people. We're all equally primitive, give or take two or three thousand years here or a hundred years there.

  Gary Snyder

  Years, Two, Giving

  Gary Snyder (1977). “The Old Ways: Six Essays”

  5 Copy quote

• Forests in the tropics are cut to make pasture to raise beef for the American market. Our distance from the source of our food enables us to be superficially more comfortable, and distinctly more ignorant.

  Gary Snyder

  Distance, Cutting, Ignorant

  Gary Snyder (2010). “The Practice of the Wild”, p.197, Counterpoint Press

  5 Copy quote

• I don't know of any other city where you can walk through so many culturally diverse neighborhoods, and you're never out of sight of the wild hills. Nature is very close here.

  Gary Snyder

  Sight, Cities, San Francisco

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• All that we did was human, stupid, easily forgiven, Not quite right.

  Gary Snyder

  Stupid, Forgiven, Humans

  Gary Snyder (1968). “The Back Country”, p.120, New Directions Publishing

  6 Copy quote

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