I have found what I need most to heal a broken bond is time together—the very thing I avoid is the thing most desired.

— Terry Tempest Williams

In the desert I often whisper. Junipers are excellent sounding boards. They have been shaped by wing. Rocks seem to care nothing about what I say, yet when I speak to them, they feel porous, capable of receiving my words and taking them in as part of their history of brokenness.

— Terry Tempest Williams

I pray to the birds because they remind me of what I love rather than what I fear. And at the end of my prayers, they teach me how to listen.

— Terry Tempest Williams

It is not possible to satisfy women," a friend said. "We are disturbed if we have children too young. Disturbed if we have then later. Disturbed if we don't have children at all.

— Terry Tempest Williams

I wonder how it is we have come to this place in our society where art and nature are spoke in terms of what is optional, the pastime and concern of the elite?

— Terry Tempest Williams

Listening over and over to the voices through a family of instruments allowed us to recognize and appreciate the dignity and uniqueness of each living thing in the meadow and forest.

— Terry Tempest Williams

Most of all, differences of opinion are opportunities for learning.

— Terry Tempest Williams

My grandmother simply shook her head and said, "You know what you saw. The bird doesn't need to be counted, and neither do you.

— Terry Tempest Williams

My mother's journals are a shadow play with mine. I am a woman wedded to words. Words cast a shadow. Without a shadow there is no depth. Without a shadow there is no substance. If we have no shadow, it means we are invisible. As long as I have a shadow, I am alive.

— Terry Tempest Williams

My voice is born repeatedly in the fields of uncertainty.

— Terry Tempest Williams