Joe Hutto > Quotes

“Disturbingly, modern technological society has allowed us all to become nature’s bubble children who artificially dwell in that vacuum of cerebral abstraction that we know simply as material culture. But of course our existence on the planet is not an abstraction. Human culture is not really the universe we live in. That we can so rigorously sustain the illusion that we are somehow removed from the forces that perpetuate and sustain life on this planet is a strong indictment of modern humanity’s separation from nature and hints that simple human reason and common sense might also be largely illusory.”
― Joe Hutto, The Light in High Places: A Naturalist Looks at Wyoming Wilderness, Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheep, Cowboys, and Other Rare Species

“We have this distinctly human concept of good and bad. Nature doesn't have that. It just is. I'm not comfortable with that. I'm not accepting of the fact that we live in a profoundly brutal world. I don't fully approve of the way nature works. This lifetime of study has left me disappointed by the brutality of it all.
It has also made me more sympathetic to the human condition and the many unbearable circumstances we find ourselves in. You and I are lucky in this part of the world not to experience the sort of wretched life that is a reality for so many.”
― Joe Hutto

“The bugle call of a bull elk in a high mountain basin, the haunting voice of a screech owl on a moonlit night, the song of a white-throated sparrow on a cold winter's morning, or the resounding call of a wild turkey gobbler in spring - there are a certain few sounds in nature that seem to symbolize true wilderness. A gentle north wind moving through a remote forest of longleaf pine on a clear winter's day is one of those voices that stirs something deep inside of us. The grandest organ in the greatest cathedral is but a moan in the darkness by comparison.”
― Joe Hutto, Illumination in the Flatwoods: A Season With The Wild Turkey

“Why must I return and yet all of this can remain? What is so inherent or peculiar in our being that eventually we must always be separated from this primordial wonder? The chipmunk's credentials must read with more substance and authority.”
― Joe Hutto