Quotes by Terry Tempest Williams

About Terry Tempest Williams:

Terry Tempest Williams is an American author, conservationist and activist. Williams’ writing is rooted in the American West and has been significantly influenced by the arid landscape of her native Utah and its Mormon culture. Her work ranges from issues of ecology and wilderness preservation, to women's health, to exploring our relationship to culture and nature.
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

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

Terry Tempest Williams

I pray to the birds because they remind me of what I love rather than what I fear. And at the end of my prayers, they teach me how to listen.

Terry Tempest Williams

What is it about the relationship of a mother that can heal or hurt us? Her womb is the first landscape we inhabit. It is here we learn to respond - to move, to listen, to be nourished and grow. In her body we grow to be human as our tails disappear ...

Terry Tempest Williams

Today, I feel stronger, learning to live within the natural cycles of a day and to not expect too much of myself. As women, we hold the moon in our bellies. It is too much to ask to operate on full-moon energy three hundred and sixty-five days a year...

Terry Tempest Williams

I believe we must do things in our lives for the right reasons, because we enjoy doing them, with no expectation of getting something back in return. Otherwise, we are constantly being disappointed." She moved her turquoise bracelet back and forth on...

Terry Tempest Williams

Grief dares us to love once more.

Terry Tempest Williams

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 wh...

Terry Tempest Williams

I admire how she protects her energy and understands her limitations.

Terry Tempest Williams

Buddha says there are two kinds of suffering: the kind that leads to more suffering and the kind that brings an end to suffering.

Terry Tempest Williams

I wonder how it is we have come to this place in our society where art and nature are spoke in terms of what is optional, the pastime and concern of the elite?

Terry Tempest Williams

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

Terry Tempest Williams

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

Terry Tempest Williams

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,...

Terry Tempest Williams

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

Terry Tempest Williams

The middle path makes me wary. . . . But in the middle of my life, I am coming to see the middle path as a walk with wisdom where conversations of complexity can be found, that the middle path is the path of movement. . . . In the right and left worl...

Terry Tempest Williams

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.

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.

Terry Tempest Williams

Story is the umbilical cord that connects us to the past, present, and future. Family. Story is a relationship between the teller and the listener, a responsibility. . . . Story is an affirmation of our ties to one another.

Terry Tempest Williams

The mind creates those things that exist.

Terry Tempest Williams

I speculate over some of the Anglo nomenclature of birds: Wilson's snipe, Forster's tern . . . : What natural images do these names conjure up in our minds? What integrity do we give back to the birds with our labels.

Terry Tempest Williams

Author Bio

  • NameTerry Tempest Williams
  • DescriptionAmerican writer
  • BornSeptember 8, 1955
  • AwardsGuggenheim Fellowship