Helen of Nowhere Quotes

“It wasn’t that I was looking back, but rather that I was looking inward, and the memory of the behind was, in fact, within.”
― Makenna Goodman, Helen of Nowhere

“To live a life without shadows was an errand of fools. And yet, who could not look upon fools and envy them their frivolity?”
― Makenna Goodman, Helen of Nowhere

“The soul, on the other hand—like when a man is soulful, when he’s playing jazz and he becomes the music—is how the essence of who we are can come through.”
― Makenna Goodman, Helen of Nowhere

“Therapy is just the ego attempting to make sense of the stories it weaves and then loops on repeat.”
― Makenna Goodman, Helen of Nowhere

“It’s not easy to transfer knowledge, and it’s not easy to get rid of it, either. To teach is one of life’s most complex gestures, and its most humane.”
― Makenna Goodman, Helen of Nowhere

“Honesty and sincerity are great ways to avoid suspicion, she would always say.”
― Makenna Goodman, Helen of Nowhere

“taker thinks about how much they need, not about how their need’s fulfillment might affect others. Whereas a doer is a person who takes positive action to benefit others.”
― Makenna Goodman, Helen of Nowhere

“You couldn’t just read, you had to have read. To learn, you had to already know.”
― Makenna Goodman, Helen of Nowhere

“Someone told me that life is a collection of details you choose to pay attention to. Most of my life has been taken up by my work, but since my work has always been about observing nature, I consider my life’s work all about paying attention. This is what I told my students: The world is to be observed, and observing for its own sake is a life worth living.”
― Makenna Goodman, Helen of Nowhere

“Beware the storytellers, I told my students on my last day. They’ll build you a world you’ll prefer to your own.”
― Makenna Goodman, Helen of Nowhere

“My beautiful student was last to present her work.

She said to think of a truth in nature is absurd. The birds, the flowers, the trees, the soil - each of these entities had a history that preceded its current state, and each stage of that history was informed by both regeneration and violence, and political and environmental factors that impacted it directly and indirectly. If there was any truth to be discovered, it was that nature itself was not neutral, and any so-called purity was imposed upon it by those of us with the need to use nature as a shield from our own complicity with systems of destruction.”
― Makenna Goodman, Helen of Nowhere