Eliot Sumner Quotes

I think probably one of the important things that happened to me was growing up in Idaho in the mountains, in the woods, and having a very strong presence of the wilderness around me. That never felt like emptiness. It always felt like presence.

My relationship to the desecration of the earth was very theoretical and intellectual until I got sick. I could never watch anything about polar bears dying or the death of bees. There were certain things I knew I couldn't go near because they were too devastating. But I don't think until I got cancer did I get it in my body, what was happening to the earth. I finally went: "Oh! Earth! Organism!"

I alone am different from the others, because I am nourished by the great mother.

I know I'm different, but I don't think about it.

Everyone returns us to a different sense of ourselves, for we become a little of who they think we are.

I think a healthy connection with the natural world actually makes us more human.

It's very benign, it seems, to think, "There's a tree." In fact, it's a very beautiful thought. If someone chops down all the trees, then we think, "Oh, my goodness, something is out of order in my world." We begin to think, "Who am I in a world without trees?"

I don't think I'm better than other people, I think I'm different from other people, because I do different things.

I was interested in the environment from when I was a little kid. I spent most of my time hunting and fishing and kayaking.

My assumption is I'm not going to be recognized. But when I am, I'm like, "Dang, you know who I am?" I always think I look so different.

I think a lot of people in my circle are thinking that way or see the movie [Into the Forest] and then really think that way. I think it's hopefully tapping into sort of a consciousness right now in regards to our society's relationship with the environment and our own and our disconnect from it, myself included.

I've always liked extreme performers; I don't think I am one, but my mentality is in line with that.

George Clooney likes to talk about himself in the third person mostly. He's always enjoyed it. Listen, I don't like to think in those terms, where you just have to completely separate yourself one from the other.

I am what I feel and think and do.

When Gypsy was older, after she became Gypsy Rose Lee, I think she was both proud and slightly ashamed of her Seattle roots. She worked very hard to rid her voice of any trace of a local accent, cultivating an affected way of speaking that sounded as if she pinned the ends of her words.

People cain't help being what they are any more than a skunk can help being a skunk. Don't you think if they had their choice they would rather be something else? Sure they would. People are just weak.

Who you think you are will always be frightened of change. But it doesn't make any difference to who you truly are.

Hearing myself so much all the time, I don't think I sound that special all the time because it's me.

The gospel doesn't just free me from what people think of me, but also from what I think of me.

I think we are obsessed in the U.S. with the personal, in ways that blind us to more important issues of life. I just think if we could take all the obsession with the personal (inaudible), and personal judgment and have people be concerned about the environment, what a different world we would live in.

I like to think that I'm not old yet.

If you will think of ourselves as coming out of the earth, rather than having been thrown in here from somewhere else, you see that we are the earth, we are the consciousness of the earth. These are the eyes of the Earth. And this is the voice of the earth.

I am, it seems, interested in people with multiple identities. I think we all have multiple identities.

When I look in the mirror, I see about a thousand different Jadas.

I'm beginning to think that maybe it's not just how much you love someone. Maybe what matters is who you are when you're with them.