The Anthropocene Reviewed Quotes

“I know the world will survive us - and in some ways it will be more alive.”
― John Green, The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet

“I think two of the fundamental facts of being a person are 1. We must go on, and 2. None of us ever walks alone. We may feel alone (in fact, we will feel alone), but even in the crushing grind of isolation, we aren't alone.”
― John Green, The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet

“It is May of 2020, and I do not have a brain well suited for this.”
― John Green, The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet

“I am scared to even say this out loud, because I worry that having confessed this fragility, you now know where to punch. I know that if I am hit where I am earnest, I will never recover.

It can sometimes feel like loving the beauty that surrounds us is somehow disrespectful to the many horrors that also surround us. But mostly, I think I'm just scared that if I show the world my belly, it will devour me. And so I wear the armor of cynicism and hide behind the great walls of irony and only glimpse beauty with my back turned to it through the claude glass. But I want to be earnest, even if it's embarrassing.

The photographer Alec Soth has said, "to me, the most beautiful thing is vulnerability. I would go a step further and argue that you cannot see the beauty which is enough unless you make yourself vulnerable to it."

So I try to turn toward that scattered light, belly out and I tell myself, "this doesn't look like a picture, and it doesn't look like a god. It is a sunset, and it is beautiful." And this whole thing you've been doing where nothing gets five stars because nothing is perfect, that's bullshit. So much is perfect. Starting with this.”
― John Green

“Bei dieser Passage gibt es nur ein einziges Problem: Es stimmt nicht. »Der Mensch« hat keineswegs den Atem angehalten angesichts dieses Kontinents, denn wenn wir uns »den Menschen« als die gesamte Menschheit vorstellen, dann hat »der Mensch« die Gegend schon gekannt, ja bereits seit Zehntausenden von Jahren bewohnt. Die Verwendung von »der Mensch« verrät uns am Ende viel darüber, wen genau der Erzähler als Person anerkennt und von welchem Standpunkt die Geschichte erzählt wird.”
― John Green, The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet

“For me, finding hope is not some philosophical exercise or sentimental notion; it is a prerequisite for survival.”
― John Green

“I stop believing in the future. There's a character in Jacqueline Woodson's novel 'If You Come Softly' who says that he looks into the future and sees only 'this big blank space where I should be.' When I think of the future, I start to only see the big blank space, the whyless bright terror. As for the present, it hurts. Everything hurts. The pain ripples beneath my skin, bone-shocking. What's the point of all this pain and yearning? Why?”
― John Green, The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet