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"The stars we are given. The constellations we make. That is to say, stars exist in the cosmos, but constellations are the imaginary lines we draw between them, the readings we give the sky, the stories we tell."
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"When you are very rational, you may not be able to dream or live in a fairy tale."

"Fairytales are healthy for the children. As they grow up, the magical thinking wears off, but the fairytale-induced creative brain circuits stay forever."

"Imagination grows by exercise, and contrary to common belief, is more powerful in the mature than in the young."

"How crazy it would be if the moon did spin and the earth stood still and the sun went dim!How absolutely ludicrous if snakes could walk and kids could fly and mimes did talk!How silly it would be if the nights were tan and the mornings green and the sun cyan!How totally ridiculous if horses chirped and spiders sang and ladies burped!How shocking it would be if the dragons ruled and the knights were daft but the fish were schooled!How utterly preposterous if rain were dry and snowflakes warm and real men cried!I love to just imagineall the lows as heights,and the salty, sweet,and our lefts as rights.Perhaps it is incredibleand off the hook,but it all makes sensein a storybook!"

"I mean, public libraries like this one were always short of money, so building even the tiniest of labyrinths had to be beyond their means."

"If I had lady-spider legs, I would weave a sky where the stars lined up. Matresses would be tied down tight to their trucks, bodies would never crash through windshields. The moon would rise above the wine-dark sea and give babies only to maidens and musicians who had prayed long and hard. Lost girls wouldn't need compasses or maps. They would find gingerbread paths to lead them out of the forest and home again. They would never sleep in silver boxes with white velvet sheets, not until they were wrinkled-paper grandmas and ready for the trip."

"A tree house, to me, is the most royal palace in the world."

"You can do more with a castle in a story than with the best cardboard castle that ever stood on a nursery table."

"The world cannot be translated, It can only be dreamed of and touched."

"There was a moment of silence as they imagined a future in which there existed an organisation that stole imagination for, undoubtedly, a sinister plan."
Explore more quotes by Rebecca Solnit

"The revolution that counts is the one that takes place in the imagination; many kinds of change issue forth thereafter, some gradual and subtle, some dramatic and conflict-ridden--which is to say that revolution doesn't necessarily look like revolution."

"Joy doesn't betray but sustains activism. And when you face a politics that aspires to make you fearful, alienated and isolated, joy is a fine initial act of insurrection."

"I made my first home there and had been happy, because to be alienated in one's own country, in one's own hometown, among one's kin and peers, was problematic, but nothing could be more natural than to be alienated in a foreign country, and so there I had at last naturalized my estrangement. This may be one of the underappreciated pleasures of travel: of being at last legitimately lost and confused."

"It's the way some med say, "I'm not the problem" or that they shifted the conversation from actual corpses and victims as well as perpetrators to protecting the comfort level of bystander males. An exasperated woman remarked to me, "What do they want--a cookie for not hitting, raping, or threatening women?"

"In mountaineering, if we look for private experience rather than public history, even getting to the top becomes an optional narrative rather than the main point, and those who only wander in high places become part of the story."

"Pain serves a purpose. Without it you are in danger. What you cannot feel you cannot take care of."

"You read enough books in which people like you are disposable, or are dirt, or are silent, absent, or worthless, and it makes an impact on you. Because art makes the world, because it matters, because it makes us. Or breaks us."

"Fear of making mistakes can itself become a huge mistake, one that prevents you from living, for life is risky and anything less is already loss."

"The positive emotions that arise in...unpromising circumstances demonstrate that social ties and meaningful work are deeply desired, readily improvised, and intensely rewarding. The very structure of our economy and society prevent these goals from being achieved."

"The self is also a creation, the principal work of your life, the crafting of which makes everyone an artist."
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