Quotessence
Home / Authors / Rebecca Solnit
Rebecca Solnit

Rebecca Solnit Quotes

Writer

Filter quotes by topic

AllWalkingWorldActivismHopePeopleWayPoliticsThinkingFeminismImaginationSpaceWalksLandscapeWritingKnowsLostStoriesJourneyWanderBody

Famous Rebecca Solnit Quotes

“It had come to me not in a sudden epiphany but with a gradual sureness, a sense of meaning like a sense of place. When you give yourself to places, they give you yourself back; the more one comes to know them, the more one seeds them with the invisible crop of memories and associations that will be waiting for you when you come back, while new places offer up new thoughts, new possibilities. Exploring the world is one of the best ways of exploring the mind, and walking travels both terrains.”

KnowsWorldWayGivingMindWaitingMemoriesPossibilityWalkingOffersSeedsInvisibleBest WayAssociationExploringCropsNew ThoughtEpiphanyWaiting For YouTerrainNew PlacesNew PossibilitiesSense Of PlaceExploring The World
Book:Wanderlust: A History of Walking
Create image

“Every woman knows what I'm talking about. It’s the presumption that makes it hard, at times, for any woman in any field; that keeps women from speaking up and from being heard when they dare; that crushes young women into silence by indicating, the way harassment on the street does, that this is not their world. It trains us in self-doubt and self-limitation just as it exercises men’s unsupported overconfidence.”

KnowsMenWorldWayDoeSelfHardYoungSilenceTalkingDoubtHeardStreetsFieldsExerciseTrainDareLimitationCrushYoung WomenHarassmentPresumptionSelf-doubtSpeaking UpOverconfidence
Author:Rebecca Solnit
Create image

“The oil corporations spend a lot of money to get, say, the tar sands pipeline through, but nobody's - you know, there are definitely environmentalists being paid - but a lot of people are acting for something other than financial compensation. So if the tar sands pipeline doesn't get made, it's because a huge amount of people are doing something that doesn't involve remuneration, money, etc., because we're not actually the self-interested financial instruments that economists like to imagine we are.”

PeopleIfsKnowsMadeSelfActingImagineHugeAmountPaidInstrumentsFinancialOilMade ItCorporationsSandEtcLots Of MoneyEconomistCompensationEnvironmentalistPipelineRemuneration
Author:Rebecca Solnit
Create image

“Cities have always offered anonymity, variety, and conjunction, qualities best basked in by walking: one does not have to go into the bakery or the fortune-teller's, only to know that one might. A city always contains more than any inhabitant can know, and a great city always makes the unknown and the possible spurs to the imagination.”

KnowsDoeMightImaginationCitiesQualityWalkingFortuneVarietySpursAnonymityGreat CitiesConjunctionsUrban PlanningBakeriesFortune Teller
Book:Wanderlust: A History of Walking
Create image

“An aptitude test established architecture as an alternative [career]. But what decided the matter for [Teddy Cruz] was the sight of a fourth-year architecture student sitting at his desk at a window, drawing and nursing a cup of coffee as rain fell outside. 'I don't know, I just liked the idea of having this relationship to the paper and the adventure of imagining the spaces. That was the first image that captured me.”

KnowsYearsFirstsIdeasMatterSpaceCareersStudentsAdventurePaperSittingRainWindowDecidedTestsSightArchitectureDrawingCoffeeCupsAlternativesFourthDesksCapturedNursingCoffee CupTeddyCruzAptitudeAptitude TestFourth Year
Author:Rebecca Solnit
Create image

“How will you go about finding that thing the nature of which is totally unknown to you?" (Plato) The things we want are transformative, and we don’t know or only think we know what is on the other side of that transformation. Love, wisdom, grace, inspiration- how do you go about finding these things that are in some ways about extending the boundaries of the self into unknown territory, about becoming someone else?”

ThinkingKnowsWayWantSelfInspirationSidesGraceBecomingFindingsTransformationBoundariesTerritoryPlatoExtendingLove WisdomBecoming SomeoneBecoming Someone Else
Author:Rebecca Solnit
Create image

“The desire to go home that is a desire to be whole, to know where you are, to be the point of intersection of all the lines drawn through all the stars, to be the constellation-maker and the center of the world, that center called love. To awaken from sleep, to rest from awakening, to tame the animal, to let the soul go wild, to shelter in darkness and blaze with light, to cease to speak and be perfectly understood.”

KnowsWorldSoulWholeHomeLightDesireSpeakStarsLinesSleepAnimalDarknessUnderstoodAwakeningCeaseWhere You AreMakersShelterConstellationsIntersectionsCenter Of The World
Book:Storming the Gates of Paradise: Landscapes for Politics
Create image