Gabi Hamner

“No risk is more terrifying than that taken by the first root. A lucky root will eventually find water, but its first job is to anchor -- to anchor an embryo and forever end its mobile phase, however passive that mobility was. Once the first root is extended, the plant will never again enjoy any hope (however feeble) of relocating to a place less cold, less dry, less dangerous. Indeed, it will face frost, drought, and greedy jaws without any possibility of flight. The tiny rootlet has only once chance to guess what the future years, decades -- even centuries -- will bring to the patch of soil where it sits. It assesses the light and humidity of the moment, refers to its programming, and quite literally takes the plunge.”
― Hope Jahren, Lab Girl

“I have learned that raising a child is essentially one long, slow agony of letting go.”
― Hope Jahren, Lab Girl

“We love each other because we can't help it. We don't work at it and we don't sacrifice for it. It is easy and all the sweeter to me because it is so undeserved. I discover within a second context that when something just won't work, moving heaven and earth often won't make it work -- and similarly, there are some things that you just can't screw up. I know that I could live without him: I have my own work, my own mission, and my own money. But I don't want to. I really don't want to. We make plans: he will share his strength with me and I will share my imagination with him...”
― Hope Jahren, Lab Girl

“People don't know to make a leaf, but they know how to destroy one.”
― Hope Jahren, Lab Girl