Terry Tempest Williams Quotes

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

A pencil is a wand and a weapon. Be careful. Protect yourself. It can be glorious.

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.

The nature of living and loving is the act of reciprocity. As women, we are told that to be the guest is to receive. We are told that to be the host is to give. But what if it is the reverse? What if it is the guest who gives to the host and it is the host who receives from the guest each time she sets her table to welcome and feed those she loves? To be the guest and the host simultaneously is to imagine a mutual exchange of gifts predicated on respect and joy. If we could adopt this truth, perhaps we as women would be less likely to become martyrs.

This is my living faith, an active faith, a faith of verbs: to question, explore, experiment, experience, walk, run, dance, play, eat, love, learn, dare, taste, touch, smell, listen, speak, write, read, draw, provoke, emote, scream, sin, repent, cry, kneel, pray, bow, rise, stand, look, laugh, cajole, create, confront, confound, walk back, walk forward, circle, hide, and seek.

Here is the world. It is not a safe place, but however frightening and bewildering life may become, we can survive our fears, grab them by the wolf ’s tail as Peter did, and make peace with the world.

My grandmother simply shook her head and said, "You know what you saw. The bird doesn't need to be counted, and neither do you.

Most of all, differences of opinion are opportunities for learning.

I am a woman with wings,' I once wrote and will revise these words again. 'I am a woman with wings dancing with other women with wings.' In a voiced community, we all flourish.

Choosing with integrity means finding ways to speak up that honor your reality, the reality of others, and your willingness to meet in the center of that large field. It’s hard sometimes.

Beauty is transformed over time, and not without destruction.

We know the quality of another’s heart through her voice.

Faith is not about finding meaning in the world, there may be no such thing -- faith is the belief in our capacity to create meaningful lives.

Finding one’s voice is a process of finding one’s passion.

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

Your voice is the wildest thing you own,” Brooke says to me. “And you’re giving it away. You can’t see it. Your obsession is blinding you.” He is angry. He is talking in shorthand. “You’re losing yourself.

What other species now require of us is our attention. Otherwise, we are entering a narrative of disappearing intelligences.

My voice is born repeatedly in the fields of uncertainty.

Not everything is meant for all to hear.