Grace Olmstead > Quotes

“Being content, living within a community, caring for people—that sounds like the real dream,” Peter says. “It’s romantic, and it’s reality. It’s a way of life worth living. Why settle for money, things, and disconnection?” He pauses. “We will do future generations an enormous favor if we reinvent the American Dream.”
― Grace Olmstead, Uprooted: Recovering the Legacy of the Places We've Left Behind

“It’s easy to exploit places we don’t know, places we believe to be unimportant. It’s easy to think the soil can last forever if you know nothing of it. But extraction of value at the expense of the land and its people destroys both the “nowheres” and the “somewheres,” if you give it time.”
― Grace Olmstead, Uprooted: Recovering the Legacy of the Places We've Left Behind

“Andy chose to live and work in the Emmett Valley because he saw in it the same neighborliness and village closeness he grew up with in Scotland. ... On the [town] theater’s opening night in 1910, owner Fred Larkin handed out a booklet that told townspeople, “Parents, with babies in arms, are especially invited, as we love babies.”
― Grace Olmstead, Uprooted: Recovering the Legacy of the Places We've Left Behind