The Overstory

by Richard Powers

The confirmation of others: a sickness the entire race will die of.

Las Vegas, capital of clueless sinners, toward Salt Lake, capital of cunning saints.

For there is hope of a tree, if it goes down, that it will sprout again, and that its tender branches will not cease. Though the root grows old in the earth, and the stock dies in the ground, at the scent of water it will bud, and bring forth boughs. But man, man wastes away and dies and gives up the ghost, and where is he?

The best arguments in the world won’t change a person’s mind. The only thing that can do that is a good story.

He’ll die of idealism, of being right when the world is wrong. He’ll die without knowing what she’s powerless to tell him—that he has helped her. That his heart is as good and as worthy as wood.

What we care for, we will grow to resemble. And what we resemble will hold us, when we are us no longer. . . .