"How do we forgive our Fathers? Maybe in a dream; Do we forgive our Fathers for leaving us too often or forever when we were little? Maybe for scaring us with unexpected rage or making us nervous because there never seemed to be any rage there at all. Do we forgive our Fathers for marrying or not marrying our Mothers? For Divorcing or not divorcing our Mothers? And shall we forgive them for their excesses of warmth or coldness? Shall we forgive them for pushing or leaning for shutting doors for speaking through walls or never speaking or never being silent? Do we forgive our Fathers in our age or in theirs or their deaths saying it to them or not saying it? If we forgive our Fathers what is left?"

--Dick Lourie, as quoted in the film Smoke Signals

“Ultimately I must say that British and Irish people have an abundance of easy grass, and a sort of wild instinct for putting sheep on it. Any patch of green larger than a roundabout, that is more or less horizontal enough to balance on top of, seems to trigger an instinct to put a sheep on it.”

— @elodieunderglass

From this post

"The term 'to detect' derived from the Latin verb 'to unroof' -- and because the Devil, according to legend, allowed his henchman to peer voyeuristically into houses by removing their roofs, detectives were known as 'the Devil's disciples'."

-- David Grann, Killers of the Flower Moon

"Since enforcement depends on self-reporting, and the distant threat of fines, a polluter's decision on whether to comply becomes a business calculation: what are the chances of being caught? Would paying the fine be cheaper than the cost of complying in the first place? Many waste handlers simply conclude that compliance doesn't pay."

-Dan Fagin, Toms River

"The residents of Toms River were more conflicted. They too loved the ocean, but their ire over Ciba-Geigy's discharges was tempered by their connections to the company, and its importance to the local economy. Most were not yet ready to turn on Ciba-Geigy, but they were unhappy that their town had been labeled as polluted. Reputation meant everything in Toms River, and now their community was being portrayed on television and in the newspapers as no different from Newark, Trenton, and the other run-down industrial cities they had scorned for so long."

--Dan Fagin, Toms River

"But those developments would also transform the social conditions in which environmental cancer research is conducted. Now that specific products of commerce, including the detritus of dye manufacture, had been directly implicated as causing the deadly disease the discoveries of Kennaway's successors would no longer be greeted with acclamation. As governments took their first steps toward meaningful regulation of the chemical industry, science would become both a weapon -- and a target."

-- Dan Fagin, Toms River

“Since World War II, the world has embraced the materials economy, that is to say, a wasteful, rather than regenerative, use of precious resources.”

— Elizabeth Knight & John Wackman Repair Revolution

“Human beings are never gonna be ‘perfect’, Roy. The best we can do is to keep asking for help and accepting it, when you can. And if you keep on doing that, you’ll always be moving towards ‘better’.”

Higgins in Ted Lasso

“We are showered every day with gifts, but they are not meant for us to keep. Their life is in their movement, the inhale and the exhale of our shared breath. Our work, and our joy, is to pass along the gift, and to trust that what we put out into the universe will always come back.”

— Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass

“It is the fundamental unfairness of parenthood, that if we do our jobs well, the deepest bonds we are given will walk out the door with a wave over the shoulder.”

— Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass

“The indigenous people understood the value of the gift to be based in reciprocity…. Many of our ancient teachings counsel that whatever we have been given, is supposed to be given away, again.”

— Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass

“As the scholar and writer Lewis Hyde notes, it is the cardinal difference between gift and commodity exchange: that a gift establishes a feeling bond between two people…. Hyde reminds us that in a gift economy, one’s freely given gifts cannot be made into someone else’s capital.”

— Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass

“I must again acknowledge the wild creatures and places in this world, which inspired every word of this novel. The gentle they have shown us far outstrips anything we have ever shown them in return.

Though Scotland has not yet passed an initiative to reintroduce wolves, it's my hope that they along with the rest of the world, and especially my homeland of Australia — will further embrace the essential work of rewilding, and maybe in doing so, we will begin to rewild ourselves.”

—Charlotte McConaghy, Once There Were Wolves

“I track what I can, but the trail disappears. I call your name with a voice broken by grief, but I have done this before and I know its end. You have gone the way Dad did, like the animals do. You have gone into the wild to die.

Or maybe, you have gone to live.”

— Charlotte McConaghy, Once There Were Wolves

“When you open your heart to rewilding a landscape, the truth is, you’re opening your heart to rewilding yourself.”

— Charlotte McConaghy, Once There Were Wolves

“My hope stutters out. I think he will leave me here. An end to his problems. But he lifts me into his arms and says, "It's all right, sweetheart, you're safe now," and I hold on to him as he carries me home, thinking I know nothing about hatred or love, about cruelty or kindness. I know nothing.”

— Charlotte McConaghy, Once There Were Wolves

“A silver, crepuscular glimmer lies low on the floor. She tiptoes through it, fancying that her feet will become stained by its luminous glow. That by morning she will discover she has left tell-tale bright footprints behind.”

— Maggie O’Farrell, The Marriage Portrait