344 Quotes by Richard Powers

There is no knowing for a fact. The only dependable things are humility and looking.

She liked the Jesus who would appall every law-abiding, property-acquiring American Christian. Jesus the Communist, the crazed shop-trasher, the friend of deadbeats.

Can you feel it lift and disappear? That standing wave of constant static. The distraction so ubiquitous you never even knew you were wrapped in it. Human certainty.

There are girls, but they baffle him. They pretend to be stupid, by way of protective coloration. Passive, still, and cryptic. They say the opposite of what they mean, to test if you can see through them. Which they want. Then resent when you do.

Trees used to talk to people all the time. Sane people used to hear them.” The only question is whether they’ll talk again, before the end.

Smart enough to see that you’re a sack of rotting meat wrapped around a little sewage tube that’s going to give out in – what? Another few thousand sunrises?

A woman sits on the ground, leaning against a pine. Its bark presses hard against her back, as hard as life. Its needles scent the air and a force hums in the heart of the wood. Her ears tune down to the lowest frequencies. The tree is saying things, in words before words.

Crazy is a species under no threat at all.

She runs the entire meal down the garbage disposal and goes hungry, a hunger more wonderful than any meal.