“No matter how much one may love the world as a whole, one can live fully in it only by living responsibly in some small part of it. Where we live and who we live there with define the terms of our relationship to the world and to humanity. We thus come again to the paradox that one can become whole only by the responsible acceptance of one's partiality.”

American novelist, poet, essayist, environmental activist, cultural critic and farmer

Wendell Berry is an American novelist, poet, essayist, environmental activist, cultural critic, and farmer, closely associated with rural Kentucky. He is known for writing across fiction, poetry, and essays about agrarian life, rural community, and the ties between people, land, and work. His agrarian ideas appear strongly in essays such as The Unsettling of America and The Gift of Good Land. He also returned often to the imagined world of Port William in novels and stories including A Place on Earth, Jayber Crow, and That Distant Land, where the culture and economy of rural life are central.