Women Authors From The United States

"I read the same five people over and over again. But it’s Toni Morrison; Toni Cade Bambara is a huge influence..."

"Robin Wall Kimmerer writes about the natural world from a place of such abundant passion that one can never quite see the world the same way after having seen it through her eyes."

"I love history, particularly the stories that get left out of overarching narratives because they are deemed too niche, strange, uncomfortable, or hard to understand. There’s so much in the archives waiting to be discovered. I think a big misconception is that our current moment is somehow one that has never before been experienced. One of the pleasures of studying history is finding the ways the past mirrors the present, and is also completely different and points to radically different outcomes."

"what is the story that that being might share with us, if we knew how to listen as well as we know how to see?"

"science asks us to learn about organisms, traditional knowledge asks us to learn from them."

"the language of “it,” which distances, disrespects, and objectifies, I can’t help but think is at the root of a worldview that allows us to exploit nature."

"Just as it would be disrespectful to try and put plants in the same category, through the lens of anthropomorphism, I think it’s also deeply disrespectful to say that they have no consciousness, no awareness, no being-ness at all. And this denial of personhood to all other beings is increasingly being refuted by science itself."

"In the English language, if we want to speak of that sugar maple or that salamander, the only grammar that we have to do so is to call those beings an “it.” And if I called my grandmother or the person sitting across the room from me an “it,” that would be so rude, right? And we wouldn’t tolerate that for members of our own species, but we not only tolerate it, but it’s the only way we have in the English language to speak of other beings, is as “it.” In Potawatomi, the cases that we have are animate and inanimate, and it is impossible in our language to speak of other living beings as “its.”"

"that kind of deep attention that we pay as children is something that I cherish, that I think we all can cherish and reclaim, because attention is that doorway to gratitude, the doorway to wonder, the doorway to reciprocity. And it worries me greatly that today’s children can recognize 100 corporate logos and fewer than 10 plants."

"a lot of the problems that we face in terms of sustainability and environment lie at the juncture of nature and culture. So we can’t just rely on a single way of knowing that explicitly excludes values and ethics. That’s not going to move us forward."

"I think that’s really important to recognize, that for most of human history, I think, the evidence suggests that we have lived well and in balance with the living world. And it’s, to my way of thinking, almost an eyeblink of time in human history that we have had a truly adversarial relationship with nature."

"we can’t have an awareness of the beauty of the world without also a tremendous awareness of the wounds; that we see the old-growth forest, and we also see the clear cut. We see the beautiful mountain, and we see it torn open for mountaintop removal. So one of the things that I continue to learn about and need to learn more about is the transformation of love to grief to even stronger love, and the interplay of love and grief that we feel for the world. And how to harness the power of those related impulses is something that I have had to learn."

"Why is the world so beautiful? is a question that we all ought to be embracing."

"Robin Wall Kimmerer shows how the factual, objective approach of science can be enriched by the ancient knowledge of the indigenous people. It is the way she captures beauty that I love the most-the images of giant cedars and wild strawberries, a forest in the rain and a meadow of fragrant sweetgrass will stay with you long after you read the last page."

"it delights me that I can be learning an ancient language by completely modern technologies, sitting at my office, eating lunch, learning Potawatomi grammar."

"The idea of reciprocity, of recognizing that we humans do have gifts that we can give in return for all that has been given to us, is I think a really generative and creative way to be a human in the world. And some of our oldest teachings are saying that what does it mean to be an educated person? It means that you know what your gift is and how to give it, on behalf of the land and of the people, just like every single species has its own gift."

"there was no question but that I’d study botany in college. It was my passion — still is, of course. But the botany that I encountered there was so different than the way that I understood plants. Plants were reduced to object. What was supposedly important about them was the mechanism by which they worked, not what their gifts were, not what their capacities were. They were really thought of as objects, whereas I thought of them as subjects. And that shift in worldview was a big hurdle for me, in entering the field of science."

"One of the difficulties of moving in the scientific world is that when we name something, often with a scientific name, this name becomes almost an end to inquiry. We sort of say, Well, we know it now. We’re able to systematize it and put a Latin binomial on it, so it’s ours. We know what we need to know. But that is only in looking, of course, at the morphology of the organism, at the way that it looks. It ignores all of its relationships. It’s such a mechanical, wooden representation of what a plant really is. And we reduce them tremendously, if we just think about them as physical elements of the ecosystem."

"A lot of us come to writing because we love to read books and read very widely. And if you are a Black person or a person of color or a white woman or a woman of color or a Black woman, so many of the books that you’re told to read—“You love to read, read this book”—you’re not in them. Those books could be very wonderful and formative, but I think as a creator, you have to think about, where am I actually writing to and from, and what am I going to pull from? Am I going to pull from the tradition that is not necessarily my language, but I’ve been told is the language of fiction? Or do I pull from the things that are actually around me to make stories— make meaning for myself and for the people who I want to write to?"

"when you know the plants, you just feel more at home wherever you go (2015)"

"People have forgotten that plants were once regarded as our oldest teachers (2015)"

"As we give thanks for the Earth, will we live in such a way that the Earth can be grateful for us? (2015)"

"the indigenous worldview of respect and reciprocity carries the values that we need to survive (2015)"

""I just have to have faith that when we change how we think, we suddenly change how we act and how those around us act, and that’s how the world changes. It’s by changing hearts and changing minds. And it’s contagious." (The Guardian, 2020)"

"I think we need to re-member these ancient ways of living that are already there and reimagine ourselves in them. (Orion Magazine, 2021)"

"“Laws are a reflection of social movements,” she says. “Laws are a reflection of our values. So our work has to be to not necessarily use the existing laws, but to promote a growth in values of justice. That’s where I really see storytelling and art playing that role, to help move consciousness in a way that these legal structures of rights of nature makes perfect sense. I dream of a day where people say: ‘Well, duh, of course! Of course those trees have standing.’” (The Guardian, 2020)"

"the English language is a language of objectification of the living world, right? When we see that beautiful moon, we say “it” is shining; those swallows, “it” is chittering as “it” flies overhead. In English, we “it” the living world, whereas in Potawatomi that’s not possible. We use the same grammar for each other as we do for our plant and animal relatives. (Orion Magazine, 2021)"

"According to Jewish Law, this book is written by people who do not exist. I assure you, it's all very logical: we're not proscribed because we don't exist. If we existed, believe me, they'd be against us."

"The earth are all in one bowl, all to be shared from a single spoon. This is the vision of the economy of the commons, wherein resources fundamental to our well-being, like water and land and forests, are commonly held rather than commodified. Properly managed, the commons approach maintains abundance, not scarcity. These contemporary economic alternatives strongly echo the indigenous worldview in which the earth exists not as private property, but as a commons, to be tended with respect and reciprocity for the benefit of all. And yet, while creating an alternative to destructive economic structures is imperative, it is not enough. It is not just changes in policies that we need, but also changes to the heart. Scarcity and plenty are as much qualities of the mind and spirit as they are of the economy. Gratitude plants the seed for abundance."

"The gifts of the earth are to be shared, but gifts are not limitless. The generosity of the earth is not an invitation to take it all."

"There is an ancient conversation going on between mosses and rocks, poetry to be sure. About light and shadow and the drift of continents."

"In an essay describing peoples with few possessions as the original affluent society, anthropologist reminds us that, "modern capitalist societies, however richly endowed, dedicate themselves to the proposition of scarcity. Inadequacy of economic means is the first principle of the world’s wealthiest peoples." The shortage is due not to how much material wealth there actually is, but to the way in which it is exchanged or circulated. The artificially creates scarcity by blocking the flow between the source and the consumer. Grain may rot in the warehouse while hungry people starve because they cannot pay for it. The result is famine for some and diseases of excess for others. The very earth that sustains us is being destroyed to fuel injustice. An economy that grants personhood to corporations but denies it to the more-than-human beings: this is a economy."

"I fear altogether too many scientists hide behind this notion that our objectivity will somehow be compromised by advocacy. I couldn’t disagree more…When we have the privilege of understanding how the living world works, who better than the scientific community to also stand up and tell this story? (The Guardian, 2024)"

"it’s really love more than hope…We hear so much of: ‘Well, do you have hope?’ Hope for what? For me it’s about helping people fall in love with the world again. We know as people the power we have when we really recognise our love for someone or something. Hmm! – there’s nothing that’s going to stand in our way. (The Guardian, 2024)"

"Most people don’t really see plants or understand plants or what they give us...People can’t understand the world as a gift unless someone shows them how it’s a gift.” (The Guardian, 2020)"

"I can’t think of a single scientific study in the last few decades that has demonstrated that plants or animals are dumber than we think. It’s always the opposite, right? What we’re revealing is the fact that they have a capacity to learn, to have memory. And we’re at the edge of a wonderful revolution in really understanding the sentience of other beings."

"In many indigenous ways of knowing, time is not a river, but a lake in which the past, the present, and the future exist. Creation, then, is an ongoing process and the story is not history alone—it is also prophecy."

"Ignorance makes it too easy to jump to conclusions about what we don't understand."

"Naturalists live in a world of wounds that only they can see."

"The story of our relationship to the earth is written more truthfully on the land than on the page. It lasts there. The land remembers what we said and what we did. Stories are among our most potent tools for restoring the land as well as our relationship to land. We need to unearth the old stories that live in a place and begin to create new ones, for we are storymakers, not just storytellers. All stories are connected, new ones woven from the threads of the old."

"If grief can be a doorway to love, then let us all weep for the world we are breaking apart so we can love it back to wholeness again."

"Restoration is imperative for healing the earth, but reciprocity is imperative for long-lasting, successful restoration. Like other mindful practices, ecological restoration can be viewed as an act of reciprocity in which humans exercise their caregiving responsibility for the ecosystems that sustain them. We restore the land, and the land restores us."

"Sweetgrass is a teacher of healing, a symbol of kindness and compassion."

"We tend to shy away from that grief,” she explains. “But I think that that’s the role of art: to help us into grief, and through grief, for each other, for our values, for the living world. You know, I think about grief as a measure of our love, that grief compels us to do something, to love more.” (The Guardian, 2020)"

"It has been said that people of the modern world suffer a great sadness, a "species loneliness"—estrangement from the rest of Creation. We have built this isolation with our fear, with our arrogance, and with our homes brightly lit against the night."

"Even a wounded world is feeding us," writes the Indigenous plant scientist Robin Wall Kimmerer. "Even a wounded world holds us, giving us moments of wonder and joy. I choose joy over despair. Not because I have my head in the sand, but because joy is what the Earth gives me daily and I must return the gift."

"Plants are the first restoration ecologists. They are using their gifts for healing the land, showing us the way."

"Restoration is a powerful antidote to despair. Restoration offers concrete means by which humans can once again enter into positive, creative relationship with the more-than-human world, meeting responsibilities that are simultaneously material and spiritual. It’s not enough to grieve. It’s not enough to just stop doing bad things."

"in a sense, the questions that I had about who I was in the world, what the world was like, those are questions that I really wished I’d had a cultural elder to ask; but I didn’t. But I had the woods to ask. And there’s a way in which just growing up in the woods and the fields, they really became my doorway into culture. In the absence of human elders, I had plant elders, instead."

"Our histories are inevitably braided together with our futures."