Desert Solitaire

by Edward Abbey

he responds to prejudice by cultivating a prejudice of his own against those whom he feels are even lower in the American hierarchy than he is:

Has joy any survival value in the operations of evolution? I suspect that it does; I suspect that the morose and fearful are doomed to quick extinction. Where there is no joy there can be no courage; and without courage all other virtues are useless.

We need wilderness whether or not we ever set foot in it. We need a refuge even though we may never need to go there.

We need the possibility of escape as surely as we need hope; without it the life of the cities would drive all men into crime or drugs or psychoanalysis.