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Terry Tempest Williams Quotes

Author

Terry Tempest Williams is an American author known for her profound insights into the relationship between humans and nature. Her works often explore themes such as environmental protection, feminism, and identity.

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Famous Terry Tempest Williams Quotes

“I write from the place of inquiry. The first draft is a discovery period to see what I know and what I don't know. My task is simply to follow the words. There are surprises along the way. I just have to get it down. Call it the sculptor's clay.”

Knows Way Writing Firsts Periods Discovery Tasks Surprise Inquiry Clay Sculptors

Author:Terry Tempest Williams

“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.”

People Thinking Knows Writing I Can Country Community Cities Struggle Members Tools West Lakes Salt Utah American West Salt Lake City

Author:Terry Tempest Williams

“I remember a phone call from a friend of mine who lives along the MacKenzie River. She said, "This is the first year in twenty that the chinook salmon have not returned." This woman knows the names of things. This woman is committed to a place. And she sounded the alarm.”

Knows Years Firsts Said Remember Names Mines Rivers Twenties Phones Committed Alarms Phone Calls Salmon

Author:Terry Tempest Williams

“Community is extremely intimate. When we talk about humor, I love that you know when you're home because there is laughter in the room, there is humor, there is shorthand. That is about community.”

Knows Home Community Rooms Laughter Intimate Shorthand

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

Source: A voice in the wilderness: conversations with Terry Tempest Williams

“Having lived in Utah all of my life, I can tell that in many ways I know of no place more lonely, no place more unfamiliar. When I talk about how it is both a blessing and a burden to have those kinds of roots, it can be terribly isolating, because when you are so familiar, you know the shadow.”

Knows Way Kind I Can Blessing Shadow Roots Lonely Burden Familiar Unfamiliar Utah

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

Source: A voice in the wilderness: conversations with Terry Tempest Williams

“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.”

People Knows Years Littles School Individual Community High School Rain Tests Entertainment Nuclear Bombs Roof Site Testing Atomic Bomb

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

Source: A voice in the wilderness: conversations with Terry Tempest Williams

“I think I must be worried all the time - maybe that is the other side of joy, you know, holding that line of the full range of emotions.”

Thinking Knows Joy Sides Lines Emotion Worried Range Range Of Emotions

Author:Terry Tempest Williams

“I know, that Rilke quote - "Beauty is the beginning of terror" - I think about that a lot. It's that realization that we are so small, and yet we are so large in our capacity to relate to the beauty of things.”

Thinking Knows Capacity Terror Realization Relate

Author:Terry Tempest Williams

“I think we're skating on surfaces. I know it in my own life - and I think that is where this frustration comes in. It's not the place we want to be, but it's the place our society requires that we be. There is no fulfillment there. So we become numbed, we become drugged, we become less than we are. And I think that we know that.”

Thinking Knows Want My Own Surface Fulfillment Frustration Our Society My Own Life Skating

Author:Terry Tempest Williams

“The pain that we feel when we are making love with someone is that we know it will end. It's that paradoxical response of joy and suffering.”

Knows Feels Ends Pain Joy Suffering Response Making Love Paradoxical

Author:Terry Tempest Williams

“John Cobb is saying that perhaps we are beginning to see that now as our greed goes completely out of control and everything is seen through money, through corporate power, etc., etc. We know it well. He asked the question, What will be the holocaust that takes us to the next era? - which he describes as "Earthism."”

Knows Wells Next Greed Eras Corporate Etc Holocaust

Author:Terry Tempest Williams

“To me, writing is about how we see. The writers I want to read teach me how to see-see the world differently. In my writing there is no separation between how I observe the world and how I write the world. We write through our eyes. We write through our body. We write out of what we know.”

Knows World Want Writing Body Eye Teach Separation

Author:Terry Tempest Williams

“How do we remain faithful to our own spiritual imagination and not betray what we know in our own bodies? The world is holy. We are holy. All life is holy.”

Knows World Body Spiritual Life Is Imagination Holy Faithful Betray

Author:Terry Tempest Williams

“The moment Eve bit into the apple, her eyes opened and she became free. She exposed the truth of what every woman knows: to find our sovereign voice often requires a betrayal.”

Knows Moments Eye Bits Voice Betrayal Apples Exposed Her Eyes Sovereign

Book:When Women Were Birds: Fifty-four Variations on Voice

Source: When Women Were Birds: Fifty-four Variations on Voice

“If so, then it was also here where I came to know I can survive what hurts. I believed in my capacity to stand back up and run into the waves again and again, no matter the risk.”

Ifs Knows I Can Matter Running Hurt Risk Capacity Wave Again And Again

Book:When Women Were Birds: Fifty-four Variations on Voice

Source: When Women Were Birds: Fifty-four Variations on Voice

“If you know wilderness in the way that you know love, you would be unwilling to let it go.... This is the story of our past and it will be the story of our future.”

Ifs Knows Way Stories Would Be Past Nature Love You Future Environmental Wilderness Our Future Our Past Let It Go Unwilling

Book:Red: passion and patience in the desert

Source: Red: passion and patience in the desert

“What every woman knows is that we are remade each time we make love, each time we give birth; each time we feel the blood making its way through our body into our cupped hands, we remember it is our destiny to make change.”

Knows Way Giving Feels Body Hands Remember Destiny Blood Birth Making Love Our Destiny

Author:Terry Tempest Williams

About the Author

Born: September 8, 1955
Known for: Author
Quotes: 298

Books & Sources

A voice in the wilderness: conversations with Terry Tempest WilliamsRelated source material

When Women Were Birds: Fifty-four Variations on VoiceRelated source material

Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and PlaceRelated source material

Pieces of White Shell: A Journey to NavajolandRelated source material

Red: passion and patience in the desertRelated source material

LeapRelated source material

An Unspoken HungerRelated source material

The Open Space of DemocracyRelated source material

An Unspoken Hunger: Stories from the FieldRelated source material

Finding Beauty in a Broken WorldRelated source material

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