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Rebecca Solnit

Rebecca Solnit Quotes

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Famous Rebecca Solnit Quotes

“Musing takes place in a kind of meadowlands of the imagination, a part of the imagination that has not yet been plowed, developed, or put to any immediately practical use. [--] [T]ime spent there is not work time, yet without that time the mind becomes sterile, dull, domesticated. The fight for free space—for wilderness and for public space—must be accompanied by a fight for free time to spend wandering in that space.”

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Book:Wanderlust: A History of Walking
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“I grew up with landscape as a recourse, with the possibility of exiting the horizontal realm of social relations for a vertical alignment with earth and sky, matter and spirit. Vast open spaces speak best to this craving, the spaces I myself first found in the desert and then in the western grasslands.”

FirstsMatterEarthSpiritFoundSpeakSocialSpaceSkyPossibilityGrewGrew UpRelationWesternDesertLandscapeRealmsCravingAlignmentRecourseVerticalHorizontalOpen SpacesEarth And SkySocial RelationsGrasslands
Book:A Field Guide to Getting Lost
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“Perhaps walking is best imagined as an 'indicator species,' to use an ecologist's term. An indicator species signifies the health of an ecosystem, and its endangerment or diminishment can be an early warning sign of systemic trouble. Walking is an indicator species for various kinds of freedom and pleasures: free time, free and alluring space, and unhindered bodies.”

KindUseBodyTermNatureSpaceWalksPleasureTroubleJourneyWalkingSpeciesVariousWanderWarningHikingTrekkingStrollingEcosystemsSaunteringFree TimeIndicatorsAlluringWarning SignsEndangerment
Book:Wanderlust: A History of Walking
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“We treat desire as a problem to be solved, address what desire is for and focus on that something and how to acquire it rather than on the nature and the sensation of desire, though often it is the desire between us and the object of desire that fills the space in between with the blue of longing.”

ProblemDesireSpaceFocusObjectsTreatsBlueLongingAcquireAddressesSensationsObjects Of Desire
Book:A Field Guide to Getting Lost
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“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
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“Musing takes place in a kind of meadowlands of the imagination, a part of the imagination that has not yet been plowed, developed, or put to any immediately practical use…time spent there is not work time, yet without that time the mind becomes sterile, dull, domesticated. The fight for free space — for wilderness and public space — must be accompanied by a fight for free time to spend wandering in that space.”

MindKindUseFightingImaginationSpacePracticalsWanderDullWildernessFree TimeTime SpentMusings
Author:Rebecca Solnit
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“The fight for free space-for wilderness and for public space-must be accompanied by a fight for free time to spend wandering in that space. Otherwise the individual imagination will be bulldozed over for the chain-store outlets of consumer appetite, true-crime titillations, and celebrity crises.”

FightingIndividualImaginationSpaceWalksJourneyCrimeWalkingCrisisStoresWanderChainsConsumersWildernessAppetiteHikingOutletsTrekkingStrollingSaunteringAdvocacyFree Time
Author:Rebecca Solnit
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“Las Vegas suggests that the thirst for places, for cities and gardens and wilderness, is unslaked, that people will still seek out the experience of wandering about in the open air to examine the architecture, the spectacles, and the stuff for sale, will still hanker after surprises and strangers. That the city as a whole is one of the most pedestrian-unfriendly places in the world suggests something of the problems to be faced, but that its attraction is a pedestrian oasis suggests the possibility of recovering the spaces in which walking is viable.”

PeopleWorldStillsWholeProblemStuffSpaceCitiesAirPossibilityWalkingGardenSurpriseStrangerAttractionArchitectureWanderWildernessThirstVegasLas VegasPlaces In The WorldRecoveringOasisSpectaclesPedestriansUnfriendly
Author:Rebecca Solnit
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“The bigness of the world is redemption. Despair compresses you into a small space, and a depression is literally a hollow in the ground. To dig deeper into the self, to go underground, is sometimes necessary, but so is the other route of getting out of yourself, into the larger world, into the openness in which you need not clutch your story and your troubles so tightly to your chest.”

WorldNeedsSelfSometimesStoriesSpaceTroubleDespairDeeperRedemptionChestsOpennessRoutesHollowClutchDig DeepSmall Spaces
Book:The Faraway Nearby
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“In great cities, spaces as well as places are designed and built: walking, witnessing, being in public, are as much part of the design and purpose as is being inside to eat, sleep, make shoes or love or music. The word citizen has to do with cities, and the ideal city is organized around citizenship -- around participation in public life.”

WellsPurposeSleepSpaceCitiesDesignCitizensWalkingBuiltIdealsShoesOrganizedCitizenshipParticipationPublic LifeGreat Cities
Book:Wanderlust: A History of Walking
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