Terry Tempest Williams Quotes

Quotes about:

• Once upon a time, when women were birds, there was the simple understanding that to sing at dawn, and to sing at dusk, was to heal the world through joy. The birds still remember what we have forgotten, that the world is meant to be celebrated.

  Terry Tempest Williams

  Simple, Bird, Joy

  109 Copy quote

• To be whole. To be complete. Wildness reminds us what it means to be human, what we are connected to rather than what we are separate from.

  Terry Tempest Williams

  Nature, Mean, Science

  Terry Tempest Williams (2008). “Red: Passion and Patience in the Desert”, p.75, Vintage

  111 Copy quote

• To slow down is to be taken into the soul of things.

  Terry Tempest Williams

  Taken, Soul, Slow Down

  Interview with Heidi Hart, imagejournal.org.

  27 Copy quote

• The eyes of the future are looking back at us and they are praying for us to see beyond our own time. They are kneeling with hands clasped that we might act with restraint, that we might leave room for the life that is destined to come. To protect what is wild is to protect what is gentle. Perhaps the wilderness we fear is the pause between our own heartbeats, the silent space that says we live only by grace. Wilderness lives by this same grace. Wild mercy is in our hands.

  Terry Tempest Williams

  Eye, Hands, Space

  Terry Tempest Williams (2002). “Red: passion and patience in the desert”, Vintage

  86 Copy quote

• If the desert is holy, it is because it is a forgotten place that allows us to remember the sacred. Perhaps that is why every pilgrimage to the desert is a pilgrimage to the self. There is no place to hide and so we are found.

  Terry Tempest Williams

  Self, Desert, Sacred

  Terry Tempest Williams (2015). “Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place”, p.148, Vintage

  110 Copy quote

• Finding beauty in a broken world is creating beauty in the world we find.

  Terry Tempest Williams

  Creating, Broken, World

  "BOOKMARK: Terry Tempest Williams on the perspective of nature and healing". Interview with Laurie Hertzel, www.startribune.com. June 30, 2017.

  67 Copy quote

• The human heart is the first home of democracy. It is where we embrace our questions: Can we be equitable? Can we be generous? Can we listen with our whole beings, not just our minds, and offer our attention rather than our opinion? And do we have enough resolve in our hearts to act courageously, relentlessly, without giving up, trusting our fellow citizens to join us in our determined pursuit-a living democracy?

  Terry Tempest Williams

  Trust, Giving Up, Home

  Terry Tempest Williams (2010). “The Open Space of Democracy”, p.83, Wipf and Stock Publishers

  87 Copy quote

• We are animal. We are Earth. We are water. We are a community of human beings living on this planet together. And we forget that. We become disconnected, we lose our center point of gravity, that stillness that allows us to listen to life on a deeper level and to meet each other in a fully authentic and present way.

  Terry Tempest Williams

  Animal, Water, Community

  Interview with David Kupfer, progressive.org. February 1, 2005.

  47 Copy quote

• The world is holy. We are holy. All life is holy. Daily prayers are delivered on the lips of breaking waves, the whisperings of grasses, the shimmering of leaves.

  Terry Tempest Williams

  Prayer, Whispering, World

  76 Copy quote

• Our sense of community and compassionate intelligence must be extended to all life forms, plants, animals, rocks, rivers, and human beings. This is the story of our past and it will be the story of our future.

  Terry Tempest Williams

  Nature, Animal, Past

  Terry Tempest Williams (2008). “Red: Passion and Patience in the Desert”, p.76, Vintage

  13 Copy quote

• I feel we have to begin standing our ground in the places we love. I think that we have to demand that concern for the land, concern for the Earth, and this extension of community that we've been speaking of, is not marginal - in the same way that women's rights are not marginal, in the same way that rights for children are not marginal. There is no separation between the health of human beings and the health of the land. It is all part of a compassionate view of the world.

  Terry Tempest Williams

  Children, Thinking, Rights

  Source: www.scottlondon.com

  91 Copy quote

• Find something that matters deeply to you and pursue it. Question. Stand. Speak. Act. Make us uncomfortable. Make us think.

  Terry Tempest Williams

  Thinking, Matter, Speak

  5 Copy quote

• The Eyes of the Future are looking back at us and they are praying for us to see beyond our own time.

  Terry Tempest Williams

  Eye, Praying, Looking Back

  Terry Tempest Williams (2002). “Red: passion and patience in the desert”, Vintage

  98 Copy quote

• I pray to the birds because they remind me of what I love rather than what I fear. And at the end of my prayers, they teach me how to listen.

  Terry Tempest Williams

  Prayer, Bird, Praying

  Terry Tempest Williams (2015). “Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place”, p.149, Vintage

  80 Copy quote

• For me, it always comes back to the land, respecting the land, the wildlife, the plants, the rivers, mountains, and deserts, the absolute essential bedrock of our lives. This is the source of where my power lies, the source of where all our power lies.

  Terry Tempest Williams

  Lying, Land, Rivers

  Interview with David Kupfer, progressive.org. February 1, 2005.

  51 Copy quote

• I want to feel both the beauty and the pain of the age we are living in. I want to survive my life without becoming numb. I want to speak and comprehend words of wounding without having these words become the landscape where I dwell. I want to possess a light touch that can elevate darkness to the realm of stars.

  Terry Tempest Williams

  Stars, Pain, Light

  11 Copy quote

• Greed says there is never enough. Abundance says there is more than enough. Greed closes the door behind itself. Abundance opens the door for others.

  Terry Tempest Williams

  Doors, Greed, Abundance

  "Exclusive: Terry Tempest Williams On Sacred Rage, Abundance, and the Upcoming White House Tar Sands Pipeline Action". Interview with Jerry Cope, www.huffingtonpost.com. August 17, 2011.

  20 Copy quote

• The heart is the path to wisdom because it dares to be vulnerable in the presence of power

  Terry Tempest Williams

  Heart, Path, Vulnerable

  8 Copy quote

• A shadow is never created in darkness. It is born of light. We can be blind to it and blinded by it. Our shadow asks us to look at what we don’t want to see

  Terry Tempest Williams

  Light, Darkness, Shadow

  Terry Tempest Williams (2012). “When Women Were Birds: Fifty-four Variations on Voice”, p.178, Macmillan

  13 Copy quote

• It is time for us to take off our masks, to step out from behind our personas - whatever they might be: educators, activists, biologists, geologists, writers, farmers, ranchers, and bureaucrats - and admit we are lovers, engaged in an erotics of place. Loving the land. Honoring its mysteries. Acknowledging, embracing the spirit of place - there is nothing more legitimate and there is nothing more true. That is why we are here. That is why we do what we do. There is nothing intellectual about it. We love the land. It is a primal affair.

  Terry Tempest Williams

  Land, Intellectual, Farmers And Ranchers

  Terry Tempest Williams (2015). “An Unspoken Hunger”, p.77, Vintage

  69 Copy quote

• Finding beauty in a broken world is creating beauty in the world we find. For me, we find this beauty through relationships, with people in place with other species. Integrity is the word that comes to mind. Integrity and presence.

  Terry Tempest Williams

  Integrity, People, Broken

  4 Copy quote

• I write to make peace with the things I cannot control. I write to create fabric in the world that often appears black and white. I write to meet my ghosts. I write to begin a dialogue. I write to imagine things differently and in imagining things differently perhaps the world will change.

  Terry Tempest Williams

  Writing, Black And White, Fabric

  6 Copy quote

• Buddha says there are two kinds of suffering: the kind that leads to more suffering and the kind that brings an end to suffering.

  Terry Tempest Williams

  Inspirational, Two, Suffering

  Terry Tempest Williams (2015). “Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place”, p.52, Vintage

  9 Copy quote

• Creativity ignited a spark. In that moment, I saw that art is not peripheral, beauty is not optional, but a strategy for survival.

  Terry Tempest Williams

  Art, Creativity, Survival

  "Ground Truthing". Interview with Devon Fredericksen, www.guernicamag.com. August 1, 2013.

  17 Copy quote

• I take a deep breath and sidestep my fear and begin speaking from the place where beauty and bravery meet--within the chambers of a quivering heart.

  Terry Tempest Williams

  Heart, Bravery, Take A Deep Breath

  Terry Tempest Williams (2012). “When Women Were Birds: Fifty-four Variations on Voice”, p.32, Macmillan

  30 Copy quote

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