Saurabh Levin

“In a world of perfect utility, we, too, will be forced to vanish.”
― Richard Powers, The Overstory

“Grass! Millions of square miles of it; numberless wind-whipped tsunamis of grass, a thousand sun-lulled caribbeans of grass, a hundred rippling oceans, every ripple a gleam of scarlet or amber, emerald or turquoise, multicolored as rainbows, the colors shivering over the prairies in stripes and blotches, the grasses – some high, some low, some feathered, some straight – making their own geography as they grow. There are grass hills where the great plumes tower in masses the height of ten tall men; grass valleys where the turf is like moss, soft under the feet, where maidens pillow their heads thinking of their lovers, where husbands lie down and think of their mistresses; grass groves where old men and women sit quiet at the end of the day, dreaming of things that might have been, perhaps once were. Commoners all, of course. No aristocrat would sit in the wild grass to dream. Aristocrats have gardens for that, if they dream at all.”
― Sheri S. Tepper, Grass

“She has seen dieback across the West. Aspens are withering. Grazed on by everything with hooves, cut off from rejuvenating fire, whole groves are vanishing. Now she sees a forest, spreading across these mountains since before humans left Africa, giving way to second homes. She sees it in one great glimpse of flashing gold: trees and humans, at war over the land and water and atmosphere. And she can hear, louder than the quaking leaves, which side will lose by winning.”
― Richard Powers, The Overstory

“But you say you respect difference."
"Different strengths we respect. Not weakness. What is the use in not actively engaging life? It passes anyhow.

She thought of the asylum. "Sometimes you have no choice.”
― Marge Piercy, Woman on the Edge of Time