Terry Tempest Williams Quotes

The human heart is the first home of democracy.

I have inherited a belief in community, the promise that a gathering of the spirit can both create and change culture. In the desert, change is nurtured even in stone by wind, by water, through time.

An individual doesn't get cancer, a family does.

I still have great faith in democracy. I have great belief in the power of community.

I believe that when we are fully present, we not only live well, we live well for others.

We are aching to come together and I think it has little to do with liberal or conservative discourse. I think it has to do with increasing disconnection with what is real and soul-serving.

We forget the nature of true power. The power within is abundance. The power without is greed.

I believe the personal is the collective. One of the ironies of writing memoir is in using the "I" it becomes an alchemical "we." This is the sorcery of literature.

I really do believe if there is hope in the world, then it is to be found within our own communities with our own neighbors, and within our own homes and families.

We're animals, I think we forget that. I think there is an ancient archetypal memory that still exists within us. If we deny that, what is the cost? So I do think it's what binds us as human beings.

Greed is a deprivation of abundance, a hoarding, a constriction of energy.

Through revision, I enter the realm of the unspeakable and find the words that have eluded me.

I think wherever we are, we can create an atmosphere of openness and trust, where women and those who feel marginalized feel safe to speak the truth of their lives.

The climate change movement is a river overflowing seeping into every nook and cranny.

I don't think of myself as an American; I see myself as a human being.

As a writer, I have learned that each time I pick up my pencil I betray someone.

My body is a compass - and it does not lie.

Water is nothing if not ingemination, an encore to the tenacity of life.

Stories have the power to create social change and inspire community.

Blind obedience in the name of patriotism or religion ultimately takes our lives.

Abundance is an expansion of energy. Abundance is a form of gratitude, a generosity, a modesty, a bow toward others - what we can give, what we can share, rather than what we can take.

Rituals are the formulas by which harmony is restored.

The act of civil disobedience is the act of taking our anger and turning it into sacred rage. It is a personal and collective gesture of resistance and insistance.

Perhaps the Wilderness we fear is the pause between our own heartbeats, the silence that reminds us we live by grace.

I think that water is a tremendous organizing principle.

I love the interrelatedness of things.

Story is a relationship between the teller and the listener, a responsibility. After the listening you become accountable for the sacred knowledge that has been shared.

Lanscape shapes culture.

Word by word, the language of women so often begins with a whisper.

There is an art to writing, and it is not always disclosure. The act itself can be beautiful, revelatory, and private.

CONVERSATION is the vehicle for change.

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

Social change can be seen as a mosaic, taking that which is broken and creating something new.

Our correspondences have wings - paper birds that fly from my house to yours - flocks of ideas crisscrossing the country. Once opened, a connection is made. We are not alone in the world.

The time had come to protest with the heart, that to deny one's genealogy with the earth was to commit treason against one's soul.

When one woman doesn't speak, other women get hurt.

I appreciate all of the unexpected places, internal and external, that my writing has taken me.

Shards of glass can cut and wound or magnify a vision.

What is private belongs to me alone. What is personal belongs to all of us through the shared experience of being human.

There is no one true church, no one chosen people.

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.

I accept the Organic Trinity of Mineral, Vegetable, and Animal with as much authority as I accept the Holy Trinity. Both are sacred.

The mind creates those things that exist.

Women piece together their lives from the scraps left over for them.

The danger is in what we codify, commodify, and exploit.

To withhold words is power. But to share our words with others, openly and honestly, is also power.

When silence is a choice, it is an unnerving presence. When silence is imposed, it is censorship.

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.

We mask our needs as the needs of others.

WHAT ARE THE CONSEQUENCES when we go against our instincts? What are the consequences of not speaking out? What are the consequences of guilt, shame, and doubt?