“Cause-and-effect assumes history marches forward, but history is not an army. It is a crab scuttling sideways, a drip of soft water wearing away stone, an earthquake breaking centuries of tension. Sometimes one person inspires a movement, or her words do decades later, sometimes a few passionate people change the world; sometimes they start a mass movement and millions do; sometimes those millions are stirred by the same outrage or the same ideal, and change comes upon us like a change of weather. All that these transformations have in common is that they begin in the imagination, in hope.”

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About Rebecca Solnit

American writer and activist

Rebecca Solnit is an American writer and activist. She writes about feminism, the environment, politics, place, and art. Her work ranges across essays and commentary on public life, with recurring attention to how people move through the world and how ideas shape it. She is also known for writing on land, landscape, and culture, bringing together personal observation and social critique.

More from Rebecca Solnit (189 quotes) →

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Books by Rebecca Solnit

Men Explain Things To Me

2014

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Wanderlust

2000

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Hope in the Dark

2004

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The Mother of all Questions

2017

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Whose Story Is This?

2019

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