Every year, wildfires in California create more greenhouse gas emissions than the state’s progressive environmental policies save.
Mark Twain said that quitting smoking is among the easiest things one can do; he did it all the time. I would add vegetarianism to the list of easy things.
Max wasn’t responding to the needs of others, which he seemed as capable of ignoring as any child. And he wasn’t being generous – that would require the knowledge of giving, which was precisely what he lacked. Everyone has a pipeline through which he pushes what he is willing and able to share of himself out into the world, and through which he takes in all of the world that he is willing and able to bear. Max’s conduit wasn’t bigger than anyone else’s, it was simply unclogged.
Golda Meir had told Anwar Sadat: “We can forgive you for killing our children, but we will never forgive you for making us kill yours.
I observed that the hero had small rivers descending his face, and I wanted to put my hand on his face, to be architecture for him.
Do you know that I am the Gypsy girl and you are Safran, and that I am Kolker and you are Brod, and that I am your grandmother and you are Grandfather, and that I am Alex and you are you, and that I am you and you are me? Do you not comprehend that we can bring each other safety and peace? When we were under the stars in Trachimbrod, did you not feel it then? Do not present not-truths to me. Not to me.
Julia hated to see nervous children. She wanted to go to her, give her an inspirational talk – explain that life changes, and what is weak becomes strong, and what is a dream becomes a reality that requires a new dream.
Just as nothing we do has the direct potential to cause nearly as much animal suffering as eating meat, no daily choice that we make has a greater impact on the environment.
All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” The protective emphasis is not a law of nature; it comes from the stories we tell about nature.
Our minds and hearts are well built to perform certain tasks, and poorly designed for others. We are good at things like calculating the path of a hurricane, and bad at things like deciding to get out of its way.
We dramatically overstate the role of science deniers, because it allows science acceptors to feel righteous without challenging us to act on the knowledge we accept. Only 14 percent of Americans deny climate change, which is a significantly lower percentage than who deny evolution, or that the earth orbits the sun. Sixty-nine percent of American voters – including the majority of Republicans – say that the United States should have remained in the Paris climate accord.
What we don’t wrestle we let go of. Love isn’t the absence of struggle. Love is struggle.
She was unhappy, although unconvinced that her unhappiness wouldn’t be someone else’s happiness. She felt unfulfilled desire – profound amounts of it – but presumably so did every other married and unmarried person. She wanted more, but didn’t know if there was more to be found. Not knowing used to feel inspiring. It felt like faith. Now it felt agnostic. Like not knowing.
Everywhere you looked, there it wasn’t.
So much sublimation: domestic closeness had become intimate distance, intimate distance had become shame, shame had become resignation, resignation had become fear, fear had become resentment, resentment had become self-protection.
The sum of those no ones was the King of the Universe.
Most people behave badly when wounded. If you can remember the wounds, it is far more possible to forgive the behavior.
And there are no cures for the hurt that hurts most. There is only the medicine of believing each other’s pain, and being present for it.
But I knew that there couldn’t be pockets that enormous. In the end, everyone loses everyone.
His words fell through him, trying to find the floor of his sadness.