Quotes by Derrick Jensen

About Derrick Jensen:

Derrick Jensen is an American author and radical environmentalist (and prominent critic of mainstream environmentalism) living in Crescent City, California. According to Democracy Now!, Jensen "has been called the poet-philosopher of the ecological movement."
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Surely by now there can be few here who still believe the purpose of government is to protect us from the destructive activities of corporations. At last most of us must understand that the opposite is true: that the primary purpose of government is ...

Derrick Jensen

a real partnership in which all parties help all others to be more fully themselves

Derrick Jensen

I waited for him to come out. He didn't. I considered going in after him, but knew the fact that I had readied myself to kill him did not mean that he had readied himself to die.

Derrick Jensen

A friend asked, "If increased awareness means less happiness, why bother?" No answer.

Derrick Jensen

Like the layers of an onion, under the first lie is another, and under that another, and they all make you cry.

Derrick Jensen

In sum, one of the primary things I learned was how to kill time. I learned also to wish away my life. I learned to give myself away.

Derrick Jensen

The only real job of a teacher, especially a writing teacher, is to help students find themselves.

Derrick Jensen

The stories we are told shape the way we see the world, which shapes the way we experience the world.

Derrick Jensen

My great-grandmother grew up in a sod house in Nebraska. When she was a tiny girl - in other words, only four human generations ago - there were still enough wild bison on the Plains that she was afraid lightning storms would spook them and they woul...

Derrick Jensen

No matter what we call it, poison is still poison, death is still death, and industrial civilization is still causing the greatest mass extinction in the history of the planet.

Derrick Jensen

For us to maintain our way of living, we must tell lies to each other and especially to ourselves. The lies are necessary because, without them, many deplorable acts would become impossibilities.

Derrick Jensen

Writing is really very easy. Tap a vein and bleed onto the page. Everything else is just technical.

Derrick Jensen

Civilization can never be sustainable.

Derrick Jensen

I think a lot of us are increasingly recognizing that the dominant culture is killing the planet.

Derrick Jensen

Maud Gonne was - excuse me, Maud Gonne was central to the Gaelic literature revival. She wrote plays, and she sang.

Derrick Jensen

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that any way of living that's based on the use of non-renewable resources won't last.

Derrick Jensen

My audience consists mainly of people who already recognize how bad this culture is, and I want to push them to become more radical. It doesn't really matter to me if they are Left or Right.

Derrick Jensen

I get asked quite often if I'm an anarchist. If they want to put a label on me, that's fine. What is most important to me is to live in a world that is not being murdered.

Derrick Jensen

People say 'what do you mean' when you talk about 'bringing down civilization.' What I really mean is depriving the rich of the ability to steal from the poor and depriving the powerful of the ability to destroy the planet. That's what I really mean.

Derrick Jensen

Part of the problem is that we have become so dependent upon this system that is killing and exploiting us, it has become almost impossible for us to imagine living outside of it, and it's very difficult physically for us to live outside of it.

Derrick Jensen

Author Bio

  • NameDerrick Jensen
  • DescriptionAmerican environmentalist
  • BornDecember 19, 1960
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionAuthor; Novelist
  • WorksEndgame; The Culture Of Make Believe; A Language Older Than Words