Gary Snyder Quotes

I recalled when I worked in the woods and the bars of Madras, Oregon. That short-haired joy and roughness – America – your stupidity. I could almost love you again.

Beware of anything that promises freedom or enlightenment – traps for eager and clever fools – a dog has a keener nose – every creature in a cave can justify himself. Three-fourths of philosophy and literature is the talk of people trying to convince themselves that they really like the cage they were tricked into entering.

Down for a new radio, to Ross Lake, and back up. Three days walking. Strange how unmoved this place leaves one; neither articulate or worshipful; rather the pressing need to look within and adjust the mechanism of perception.

After weeks of watching the roof leak I fixed it tonight by moving a single board.

In ten thousand years the Sierras Will be dry and dead, home of the scorpion. Ice-scratched slabs and bent trees. No paradise, no fall, Only the weathering land The wheeling sky, Man, with his Satan Scouring the chaos of the mind. Oh Hell!

A clear, attentive mind Has no meaning but that Which sees is truly seen.