Wendell Berry

I've been reading articles by and about Wendell Berry. Have you heard of him? He is a farmer, writer, activist and academic and his subjects are agriculture, rural life and community. He has written novels and essays. He has taught creative writing and protested wars, nuclear plants and environmental causes. He lives on the family farm in Henry County, Kentucky.

I have never read any of his novels, but I plan to after reading several articles about him in several magazines and online. I have read a couple of his essays. I found him to be a fascinating person and I fell like I can identify with a lot of the things he writes about.

But for now I would like to share some of Mr. Berry's quotes that I particularly like and agree with.


"Individualism is going around these days in uniform, handing out the party line on individualism"


"I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world and I am free."


"Our model citizen is a sophisticate who before puberty understands how to produce a baby, but who at the age of thirty will not know how to produce a potato."


"Once plants and animals were raised together on the same farm which therefore neither produced unmanageable surpluses of manure, to be wasted and to pollute the water supply, nor depended on such quantities of commercial fertilizer. The genius of America farm experts is very well demonstrated here: they can take a solution and divide it neatly into two problems."


"Today, local economies are being destroyed by the "pluralistic," displaced, global economy, which has no respect for what works in a locality. The global economy is built on the principle that one place can be exploited, even destroyed, for the sake of another place."


"The passive American consumer, sitting down to a meal of pre-prepared food, confronts inert, anonymous substances that have been processed, dyed, breaded, sauced, gravied, ground, pulped, strained, blended, prettified, and sanitized beyond resemblance to any part of any creature that ever lived."


"Wendell Berry, born 1934, is a Kentucky-based writer and farmer who believes the good life includes sustainable agriculture, healthy rural communities, connection to place, the pleasures of good food, local economies, the miracle of life, fidelity, frugality and the interconnectedness of life."
(from an essay by Mr. Berry that was printed in the March-April 2010 issue of Edible Louisville)

Just reading a couple of articles about this man really makes me want to look up some more of his essays and novels. To be such a renowned author and activist, he seems to be most at home on his farm. And I just like the whole idea of that.

I must investigate this further.

I hope you've enjoyed some of the quotes.


Kathy