Should a writer have a social purpose? Any honest writer is… - Edward Abbey

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Should a writer have a social purpose? Any honest writer is bound to become a critic of the society he lives in, and sometimes, like Mark Twain or Kurt Vonnegut or Leo Tolstoy or Francois Rabelais, a very harsh critic indeed. The others are sycophants, courtiers, servitors, entertainers. Shakespeare was a sychophant; however, he was and is also a very good poet, and so we continue to read him.

Edward Abbey

Postcards from Ed: Dispatches and Salvos from an American Iconoclast · August 23, 2006 Verified in 1 source Sign up to see the complete provenance

social-critics social-purpose writers

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About Edward Abbey

Edward Paul Abbey (29 January 1927 – 14 March 1989) was an American writer noted for his advocacy of environmental issues and criticism of public land policies.

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Alternative Names: Edward Paul Abbey

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Henry David Thoreau Wendell Berry Henry Miller Norman Mailer John Steinbeck

Additional quotes by Edward Abbey

What reason have we Americans to think that our own society will necessarily escape the world-wide drift toward the totalitarian organization of men and institutions?

To refute the solipsist or the metaphysical idealist all that you have to do is take him out and throw a rock at his head: if he ducks he’s a liar. His logic may be airtight but his argument, far from revealing the delusions of living experience, only exposes the limitations of logic.

Congress is always willing to appropriate money for more and bigger paved roads, anywhere — particularly if they form loops.

Should a writer have a social purpose? Any honest writer is bound to become a critic of the society he lives in, and sometimes, like Mark Twain or Ku… - Edward Abbey

About Edward Abbey

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Additional quotes by Edward Abbey