{"author":"Gary Snyder","author_id":"Gary+Snyder","total_quotes":18,"quotes":[{"text":"I have a friend who feels sometimes that the world is hostile to human life--he says it chills us and kills us. But how could we be were it not for this planet that provided our very shape? Two conditions--gravity and a livable temperature range between freezing and boiling--have given us fluids and flesh. The trees we climb and the ground we walk on have given us five fingers and toes. The 'place' (from the root plat, broad, spreading, flat) gave us far-seeing eyes, the streams and breezes gave us versatile tongues and whorly ears. The land gave us a stride, and the lake a dive. The amazement gave us our kind of mind. We should be thankful for that, and take nature's stricter lessons with some grace.","author":"Gary Snyder","tags":["nature"],"id":6389,"author_id":"Gary+Snyder"},{"text":"The Government finally decidedTo wage the war all-out. Defeat is Un-American. And they took to the air,Their women beside themin bouffant hairdosputting nail-polish on thegunship cannon-buttons.And they never came downfor they found,the groundis Pro-Communist. And dirty.And the insects side with the Viet Cong.","author":"Gary Snyder","tags":["america","communism","vietnam","war"],"id":27984,"author_id":"Gary+Snyder"},{"text":"But if you do know what is taught by plants and weather, you are in on the gossip and can feel truly at home. The sum of a field's forces [become] what we call very loosely the 'spirit of the place.' To know the spirit of a place is to realize that you are a part of a part and that the whole is made or parts, each of which in a whole. You start with the part you are whole in.","author":"Gary Snyder","tags":["gary-snyder","gossip","naturalism","nature","part","spirit-of-place","whole"],"id":37269,"author_id":"Gary+Snyder"},{"text":"The other side of the 'sacred' is the sight of your beloved in the underworld, dripping with maggots.","author":"Gary Snyder","tags":["truth"],"id":125674,"author_id":"Gary+Snyder"},{"text":"When the mind is exhausted of images, it invents its own.","author":"Gary Snyder","tags":["buddhism","dharma","gary","mind","snyder","zen"],"id":144300,"author_id":"Gary+Snyder"},{"text":"I see a vision of a great rucksack revolution thousands or even millions of young Americans wandering around with rucksacks, going up to mountains to pray, making children laugh and old men glad, making young girls happy and old girls happier, all of 'em Zen Lunatics who go about writing poems that happen to appear in their heads for no reason and also by being kind and also by strange unexpected acts keep giving visions of eternal freedom to everybody and to all living creatures.","author":"Gary Snyder","tags":["living","path","revolution"],"id":149466,"author_id":"Gary+Snyder"},{"text":"True affluence is not needing anything.","author":"Gary Snyder","tags":["contentment","stoicism"],"id":166884,"author_id":"Gary+Snyder"},{"text":"Goal: Clean air, clean clear-running rivers, the presence of Pelican and Osprey and Gray Whale in our lives; salmon and trout in our streams; unmuddied language and good dreams.","author":"Gary Snyder","tags":["dreams","language","the-environment"],"id":169374,"author_id":"Gary+Snyder"},{"text":"Find your place on the planet. Dig in, and take responsibility from there.","author":"Gary Snyder","tags":["earth","find","gary","place","planet","responibility","snyder"],"id":212013,"author_id":"Gary+Snyder"},{"text":"As a poet I hold the most archaic values on earth. They go back to the Neolithic: the fertility of the soil, the magic of animals, the power-vision in solitude, the terrifying initiation and rebirth, the love and ecstasy of the dance, the common work of the tribe.","author":"Gary Snyder","tags":["poet","poetry"],"id":250342,"author_id":"Gary+Snyder"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":18,"pages":2,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}