Style is like voice, it grows organically from the truth of one's own life experience. Not in terms of chapters, per se, but in terms of stories. It is the story itself that creates an inherent structure. Terry Tempest Williams More Quotes by Terry Tempest Williams More Quotes From Terry Tempest Williams The mind creates those things that exist. Terry Tempest Williams mind memory is the only way home. Terry Tempest Williams home memories way What is real to me is the power of our awareness when we are focused on something beyond ourselves. It is a shaft of light shining in a dark corner. Our ability to shift our perceptions and seek creative alternatives to the conondrums of modernity is in direct proportion to our empathy. Can we imagine, witness, and ultimately feel the suffering of another? Terry Tempest Williams light real dark People talk about medium. What is your medium? My medium as a writer has been dirt, clay, sand--what I could touch, hold, stand on, and stand for--Earth. My medium has been Earth. Earth in correspondence with my mind. Terry Tempest Williams clay mind people I admire how she protects her energy and understands her limitations. Terry Tempest Williams admire protect energy Word by word, the language of women so often begins with a whisper. Terry Tempest Williams language Women piece together their lives from the scraps left over for them. Terry Tempest Williams scrap pieces together Who wants to be a goddess when we can be human? Perfection is a flaw disguised as control. Terry Tempest Williams flaws perfection want 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. Terry Tempest Williams betrayal voice eye We mask our needs as the needs of others. Terry Tempest Williams needs-of-others mask needs When Emily Dickinson writes, “Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul,” she reminds us, as the birds do, of the liberation and pragmatism of belief. Terry Tempest Williams soul writing bird I am obsessed by the idea of silence. I went through an entire library studying art, artists and their critics, philosophers, too, on the meaning and significance of the color white. I dreamed of white birds and white bears. I thought about the white pages of my mother's journals. I became enthralled with John Cage and his work, 4'33”, his masterpiece of ambient sound. Rauschenberg, too. And then at some point I let go. What sticks to the soul is what gets placed on the page. Maybe that's the unknown part, the mystery, the power of the empty page. Terry Tempest Williams mother letting-go art It is where we embrace our questions. . . . Can we listen with our whole beings, not just our minds, and offer our attention rather than our opinions? Terry Tempest Williams opinion mind attention We are taught not to trust our own experiences. Great Salt Lake teaches me experience is all we have. Terry Tempest Williams salt taught lakes 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. Terry Tempest Williams home believe commitment The only book worth writing is the book that threatens to kill you. Terry Tempest Williams writing book Words empower us, move us beyond our suffering, and set us free. Terry Tempest Williams empowering suffering moving I feel like we are at a time of great creativity if we choose to embrace it as such, if we choose to engage the will of our imaginations and imagine another way of being in the world. Terry Tempest Williams creativity imagination time When I write, I put one foot in front of the other. It's an act of faith. I just follow my heart. Terry Tempest Williams feet heart writing 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. Terry Tempest Williams support country people
