When I write paradise, I mean not apple trees and only golden women, but also scorpions and tarantulas and flies, rattlesnakes and gila monsters, sandstone, volcanoes, and earthquakes, bacteria, bear, cactus, yucca, bladderweed, ocotillo and mesquite, flash floods and quicksand, and yes, disease and death and the rotting of flesh. Paradise is the here and now, the actual, tangible dogmatically real Earth on which we stand. Yes, God bless America, the Earth upon which we stand.
— Edward Abbey, Resist Much, Obey Little by James R. Hepworth, editor, Gregory McNama, editor