Panic is rare, looting is essentially insignificant, people are not terrified and trampling each other to flee from a disaster scene, but in fact are trying to manage a situation. We may in fact revert to some sort of primordial civility. Rebecca Solnit More Quotes by Rebecca Solnit More Quotes From Rebecca Solnit As for me, the grounds of my hope have always been that history is wilder than our imagination of it and that the unexpected shows up far more regularly than we ever dream. Rebecca Solnit unexpectedimaginationdream People are actually very good at being communists in the sense that they instantly abandon capitalism, that they love these relationships of mutual aid, because the astonishing thing about disasters is that people are often weirdly joyous in them, because they've recovered a sense of agency, a sense of power, etc. Rebecca Solnit etcagencypeople The poor have often been subversive just because they don't always believe their own depiction as brutes and loafers and leeches, and new economy is making lots more poor or recognize their fellowship with the insecurity of the poor, the portion of the population for whom the system does not work. Rebecca Solnit leechesinsecuritybelieve I often think that the reason capitalism hasn't completely destroyed everything is that a huge amount of anti-capitalist endeavor goes on, from labors of love, nurture, friendship, and barter to gift economies and different kinds of exchanges, not just one alternate model but a whole host of other ways in which we engage with each other and with the world that aren't financial and debt-based. Rebecca Solnit debtgoes-onthinking Hope is not like a lottery ticket you can sit on the sofa and clutch, feeling lucky.... hope is an ax you break down doors with in an emergency. Rebecca Solnit hopefeelingsdoors Walking articulates both physical and mental freedom. Rebecca Solnit strollingtrekkingwalking A place is a story, and stories are geography, and empathy is first of all an act of imagination, a storyteller's art, and then a way of traveling from here to there. Rebecca Solnit empathyimaginationart It's all about a war of social impulses and beliefs that is as powerful in its way as a big hurricane. Rebecca Solnit powerfulwarway The promenade is a special subset of walking. Rebecca Solnit promenadespecialwalking The Earth we evolved to inhabit is turning into something more turbulent and unreliable at a pace too fast for most living things to adapt to. Rebecca Solnit living-thingspaceearth We are entering an era of heightened disaster, thanks to climate change. Being prepared for disaster will mean being prepared to sift truth from rumour, and being prepared to adjust our worldview. Rebecca Solnit enteringclimatemean There are fossils of seashells high in the Himalayas; what was and what is are different things. Rebecca Solnit himalayasfossilsdifferent All gardening is landscape painting,' said Alexander Pope. Rebecca Solnit landscape-paintingpopegarden We fly; we dream in darkness; we devour heaven in bites too small to be measured. Rebecca Solnit darknessdreamheaven The power of large corporations is still a scourge on the earth, but at least the arguments supporting them are undermined now. Rebecca Solnit corporationsargumentearth While a lot of people want to join the left to react against the mainstream or right, I in many ways react against the left - not a lot of its fundamental commitments, but its often dismal tone, righteousness, defeatism, etc. Rebecca Solnit fundamentalspeoplecommitment Books are solitudes in which we meet. Rebecca Solnit solitudebook Previous technologies have expanded communication. But the last round may be contracting it. The eloquence of letters has turned into the unnuanced spareness of texts; the intimacy of phone conversations has turned into the missed signals of mobile phone chat ... ('you're breaking up' is the cry of our time). Rebecca Solnit phonescommunicationtechnology Sometimes it seems that the fate of the world is decided entirely in the ether of electronic communications and corporate backroom deals. Rebecca Solnit fatecommunicationworld There's enough food in this world. There's enough housing in this world. There's enough shelter in this world. There's enough clothing in this world. There's enough teachers, there's enough universities for everybody's needs to be met, and the reasons they aren't is not because of lack of resources. It's because of distribution, and that's the politics of hate, which is why this is a movement against that. It's a politics of love. Rebecca Solnit hateteacherlove
