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Terry Tempest Williams

Terry Tempest Williams Quotes

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Famous Terry Tempest Williams Quotes

“John Lilly suggests whales are a culture maintained by oral traditions. Stories. The experience of an individual whale is valuable to the survival of its community. I think of my family stories-Mother's in particular-how much I need them now, how much I will need them later. It has been said when an individual dies, whole worlds die with them. The same could be said of each passing whale.”

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Book:Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place
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“Wherever we are, we can call for and create these kinds of settings for authentic dialogue. This is the seedbed of social change. In a voiced community, we all flourish. But it's not easy. Revolutionary patience and persistence is required. It can be messy, it is unpredictable, and change, especially structural change takes time - time and leadership and the will of an engaged community. What is needed? In a word, courage.”

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Author:Terry Tempest Williams
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“Each of us contributes our own piece to the whole, each in our own way, each in our own time with the gifts and talents that are ours. You ask about possible vehicles for change: question, stand, speak, act. Engage in unruly behavior. Disturb the status quo. Take direct action. Commit civil disobedience. Make art. Build community. Dance. Sing. Farm. Cook. Create something beautiful and then give it away. Find your own monkey wrench and use it with the force of love. Sharpen your pencil. Vote.”

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Author:Terry Tempest Williams
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“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.”

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Author:Terry Tempest Williams
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“I know the struggle from the inside out and I would never be so bold as to call myself a writer. I think that is what other people call you. But I consider myself a member of a community in Salt Lake City, in Utah, in the American West, in this country. And writing is what I do. That is the tool out of which I can express my love.”

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Author:Terry Tempest Williams
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“I think community is a shared history, it's a shared experience. It's not always agreement. In fact, I think that often it isn't. It's the commitment, again, to stay with something - to go the duration. You can't walk away. It's like a marriage, only I think it's more difficult to divorce yourself from community than it is to a human being because the strands are interconnected and so various.”

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Author:Terry Tempest Williams
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“Downwinders, meaning those people, individuals, communities that were downwind of the nuclear test site. During those years when we were testing atomic bombs above ground, when we watched them for entertainment from the roofs of our high schools, little did we know what was raining down on us, little did we know what would appear years later.”

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Book:A voice in the wilderness: conversations with Terry Tempest Williams
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“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.”

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Author:Terry Tempest Williams
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“I truly believe that to stay home, to learn the names of things, to realize who we live among . . . then I believe a politics of place emerges where we are deeply accountable to our communities, to our neighborhoods, to our home . . . If we are not rooted deeply in place, making that commitment to dig in and stay put . . . then I think we are living a life without specificity, and then our lives become abstractions. Then we enter a place of true desolation.”

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Author:Terry Tempest Williams
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“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. 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.”

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Author:Terry Tempest Williams
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“Community after community is rising up, ranchers, developers, environmentalists, and local commissioners, all saying this is not the best use of our public lands. It is a story that is largely unknown in the rest of the country. It is a disturbing and community-destroying example of domestic imperialism being waged against people in places deeply connected to the public lands that are our public commons. The Bush energy policy is a short-term strategy based on corporate greed instead of a sustainable vision of what best supports local economies and healthy ecosystems.”

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Author:Terry Tempest Williams
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“Storytelling awakens us to that which is real. Honest. . . . it transcends the individual. . . . Those things that are most personal are most general, and are, in turn, most trusted. Stories bind. . . . They are basic to who we are. A story composite personality which grows out of its community. It maintains a stability within that community, providing common knowledge as to how things are, how things should be -- knowledge based on experience. These stories become the conscience of the group. They belong to everyone.”

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Author:Terry Tempest Williams
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“We have to speak out now on behalf of our community and on behalf of the land and say they're the same thing and say No, we are not rolling over and No, this is not a corporate enterprise. This is democracy in the fullest sense and we must have regard and reverence and those are the cornerstones of a just society.”

BeliefSpeakCommunityJusticeDemocracyLandRegardCorporateEnterpriseReverenceRollingBehalfOur CommunitySpeaks OutCornerstonesRolling Over
Author:Terry Tempest Williams
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