Quote

We are the planet, fully as much as water, earth, fire and air are the planet, and if the planet survives, it will only be through heroism. Not occasional heroism, a remarkable instance of it here and there, but constant heroism, systematic heroism, heroism as governing principle.

Russell Banks

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Russell Banks
Age: 84
Born: 1940
Born: March 28
Novelist
Screenwriter
Writer
Newton
Massachusetts
Water
Principle
Earth
Fully
Survives
Much
Planet
Systematic
Planets
Governing
Constant
Heroism
Air
Occasional
Principles
Remarkable
Fire
Instance

More quotes by Russell Banks

Image
The United States particularly abandoned Liberia after the end of the Cold War.
Russell Banks
Image
Nobody does anything for one reason.
Russell Banks
Image
I'm seventy-six now. I'm at a stage in my life where I feel a lot of affection and regard for women, and I felt the need to make this clear in some way. I don't know how they'll feel when they read it, but I feel okay about it.
Russell Banks
Image
I am not a ventriloquist.
Russell Banks
Image
Lists of books we reread and books we can't finish tell more about us than about the relative worth of the books themselves.
Russell Banks
Image
And there are people who want to be writers because they love to write. And they care.
Russell Banks
Image
Boys like it when you talk to them as if they were grown men—at least he always did when he was a kid—because they pretend that’s what they are anyhow, grown-up men, and they do it for their entire lives.
Russell Banks
Image
The best thing about writing programs is that it rationalized the apprenticeship of a writer.
Russell Banks
Image
Chimpanzees are endangered. Severely.
Russell Banks
Image
Luck can't last a lifetime unless you die young.
Russell Banks
Image
It's hard to spend years at a time working in total solitude with no reality-check.
Russell Banks
Image
Through writing, through that process, they realize that they become more intelligent, and more honest and more imaginative than they can be in any other part of their life.
Russell Banks
Image
There is a wonderful intelligence to the unconscious. It’s always smarter than we are.
Russell Banks
Image
Storytelling is an ancient and honorable act. An essential role to play in the community or tribe. It's one that I embrace wholeheartedly and have been fortunate enough to be rewarded for.
Russell Banks
Image
Motivations are too tangled and complex.
Russell Banks
Image
Driving home, it's all I can do to keep from crying. Time's come, time's gone, time's never returning, I say to myself. What's here in front of me is all I've got, I decide, and as I drive my car through the blowing snow it doesn't seem like much, except for the kindness that I've just exchanged with an old lady, so I concentrate on that.
Russell Banks
Image
Although I still occasionally paint and draw, my life has now been shaped by my writing.
Russell Banks
Image
For almost anyone who chooses to be a writer, since so very few writers are able to learn a living from their work that is equivalent to the living earned by the average dentist or accountant.
Russell Banks
Image
It's hard to know more about a person's life than what that person wants you to know.
Russell Banks
Image
One hates a person for the same reason one loves him
Russell Banks