Quotations

«The story the Leavers have been enacting for the past three million years isn?t a story of conquest and rule. Enacting it doesn?t give them power. Enacting it gives them lives that are satisfying and meaningful to them. This is what you?ll find if you go among them. They?re not seething with discontent and rebellion, not incessantly wrangling over what should be allowed and what forbidden, not forever accusing each other of not living the right way, not living in terror of each other not going crazy because their lives seem empty and pointless, not having to stupefy themselves with drugs to get through the days, not having a new religion every week to give them something to hold on to, not forever searching for something to do or something to believe in that will make lives worth living. And ? I repeat ? this is not because they live close to nature or have no formal government or because they?re innately noble. This is simply because they?re enacting a story that works well for people ? a story that worked well for three million years and that still works well where the Takers haven?t yet managed to stamp it out.»

«It?s the idea that people living close to nature tend to be noble. It?s seeing all those sunsets that does it. You can?t watch a sunset and then go off and set fire to your neighbor?s tepee. Living close to nature is wonderful for your mental health.»

«The people of your culture cling with fanatical tenacity to the specialness of man. They want desperately to perceive a vast gulf between man and the rest of creation. This mythology of human superiority justifies their doing whatever they please with the world, just the way Hitler?s mythology of Aryan superiority justified his doing whatever he pleased with Europe. But in the end this mythology is not deeply satisfying. The Takers are a profoundly lonely people. The world for them is enemy territory, and they live in it like an army of occupation, alienated and isolated by their extraordinary specialness.»

«Blessed are those who do whatever they can wherever they are, for no one is devoid of resources or opportunities.»