To write is to carve a new path through the terrain of the imagination, or to point out new features on a familiar route. To read is to travel throug… - Rebecca Solnit

The worst criticism seeks to have the last word and leave the rest of us in silence; the best opens up an exchange that need never end. (p94)

Disaster doesn't sort us out by preferences; it drags us into emergencies that require we act, and act altruistically, bravely, and with initiative in order to survive or save the neighbors, no matter how we vote or what we do for a living.

Having the right to show up and speak are basic to survival, to dignity, and to liberty. I’m grateful that, after an early life of being silenced, sometimes violently, I grew up to have a voice, circumstances that will always bind me to the rights of the voiceless.