There's a lot of great stuff here! I could pick dozens of passages, but read one sample from a personal letter Abbey sent to George Sessions, Philosophy Professor, Sierra College, California, 30 August 1979:
"I am weary of the old and tiresome and banal question 'Why save the wilderness?' The important and difficult question is 'How? How save the wilderness?' I am not much concerned with the state of the world a thousand years from now, for in that long-range view I am an optimist: I think that the greed and stupidity of industrial culture will save us from ourselves by self-destruction. What I am concerned about is the world my children will have to live in, and maybe, if my children ever get around to it, the world of my grandchildren."
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More: Abbey on writing, from another letter.
"I’m not interested in the technique of art or the art of technique. When I want to write something I just sit down (or stand up) and do it. Scribble, scribble, nothing could be easier. It helps, naturally, to have something to say."
"Fiction is my primary interest. I’ve published six novels so far, have written a couple of others not yet published, and am presently halfway through a novel about life and death. Most of my effort has gone into fiction. Saving the world is only a hobby. Most of the time I do nothing."
"Publisher’s hype and reviewer’s cant. By sticking a writer in a convenient mental box, the reviewers and critics save themselves the trouble of actually reading, understanding and thinking about the writer’s work. But there are too many writers, too many books, too much glut and gluttony."
My own mantra: "Most of the time I do nothing."
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