Carly Nield

“When people we love are suffering, we want to make it better. But sometimes - often, in fact - you can't make it better. I'm reminded of something my supervisor said to me when I was a student chaplain: "Don't just do something. Stand there.”
― John Green, The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet

“our obsessive desire to make and have and do and say and go and get—six of the seven most common verbs in English—may ultimately steal away our ability to be, the most common verb in English.”
― John Green, The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet

“I...took some pride in 'not fulfilling my potential,' in part because I was terrified that if I tried my hardest, the world would learn I didn't actually have that much potential.”
― John Green, The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet

“I think it's helpful to know how sunsets work. I don't buy the romantic notion that scientific understanding somehow robs the universe of its beauty, but I still can't find language to describe how breathtakingly beautiful sunsets are--not breathtakingly, actually, but breath-givingly beautiful. All I can say is that sometimes when the world is between day and night, I'm stopped cold by its splendor, and I feel my absurd smallness. You'd think that would be sad, but it isn't. It only makes me grateful.”
― John Green, The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet