Sadness is more or less like a head cold - with patience, it passes. Depression is like cancer.
This Forest eats itself and lives forever.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote suggests that nature has a self-sustaining cycle where old life gives way to new life, illustrating the interconnectedness and resilience of ecosystems.
Barbara Kingsolver's quote reflects the idea that forests, and nature as a whole, engage in a continuous cycle of growth, decay, and regeneration. The phrase 'eats itself' implies that as trees die and decompose, they provide nutrients that support the growth of new life, showcasing the resilience and eternal nature of ecosystems. It emphasizes the intricate balance of life, wherein one form of existence feeds another, ultimately reinforcing the idea that nature perpetuates itself through this dynamic process.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about sustainable practices, one could use this quote to highlight the importance of preserving forests as vital ecosystems.
More from Barbara Kingsolver
All quotes βChildren can be your heartache. But that doesn't matter, you have to go on and have them . . . it works out.
I'm of a fearsome mind to throw my arms around every living librarian who crosses my path, on behalf of the souls they never knew they saved.
I did it to win love, and to prove myself capable. Not to move mountains. In my opinions, mountains don't move. They only look changed when you look down on them from great height.
Memory is a complicated thing, a relative to truth, but not its twin.
Empathy is really the opposite of spiritual meanness. It's the capacity to understand that every war is both won and lost. And that someone else's pain is as meaningful as your own.
Similar quotes
Animals come from nature. They were not designed. All my inspiration comes from nature, whether it's an animal or the layout of bark or of a leaf. Sometimes my patterns are very bold, and you can barely see where they come from, but all the textures and all the prints come out of nature.
To slaughter grand and beautiful creatures like these tuskers, whether terrestrial or marine, solely to obtain a few teeth indicates that we have not evolved very much since the days our forebears lived in caves and saught to prove their superiority by adorning themselves with teeth and claws
Nature does not suffer her veil to be taken from her, and what she does not choose to reveal to the spirit, thou wilt not wrest from her by levers and screws.
No spring nor summer beauty hath such grace as I have seen in one autumnal face.
Nobody could catch cold by the sea; nobody wanted appetite by the sea; nobody wanted spirits; nobody wanted strength. Sea air was healing, softening, relaxing - fortifying and bracing - seemingly just as was wanted - sometimes one, sometimes the other. If the sea breeze failed, the seabath was the certain corrective; and where bathing disagreed, the sea air alone was evidently designed by nature for the cure.
Spring was moving in the air above and in the earth below and around him, penetrating even his dark and lowly little house with its spirit of divine discontent and longing.