Rachael Taylor Quotes

In the country, it feels like you don't have control over nature anymore - nature is in control of you.

Mere goodness can achieve little against the power of nature.

Nature is relentless and unchangeable, and it is indifferent as to whether its hidden reasons and actions are understandable to man or not.

Endurance, after all, is the only reason we even exist. We think of ourselves as nature's deadliest animals, but the truth is, a naked human is the biggest wimp in the wild. We have no fangs, no claws, no strength, and no speed.

We kid ourselves that we're trying to be empathetic with the human condition from a distance, but I don't think that is it at all. It's stupid; it's a waste of time. But when the earth flexes its muscles, that's rather different. That's a powerful reminder of where we are.

We don't have control over many things. We're always grasping for it, but in reality, we don't have a lot of control.

She knows herself to be at the mercy of events, and she knows by now that events have no mercy.

Fate rules. You follow the steps and you plan and you work. Then fate slips in laughing and makes fools of us. Sometimes we can trick it or out guess it but most often its already written. For some its written in blood. That doesn't mean we stop, but it does mean we can't comfort ourselves with blame. It's easier to take the blame than to admit there was nothing you could do to stop whatever happened.

But the works of man are impotent against the assaults of nature . . .

The Mississippi River will always have its own way; no engineering skill can persuade it to do otherwise.

One thing you cannot control is nature.

The truth is you don't know what is going to happen tomorrow. Life is a crazy ride, and nothing is guaranteed.

It brings me back to reality. The combine doesn't care if you're a senator or not. It breaks down whenever it wants to break down.

I think that all of us are 5-year-olds and we don't want to be embarrassed in the schoolyard. I've gone through things in my life. People say it must be so hard to do it in the public eye, but the truth is, when you go through hard things, it's just hard.

Desperation, weakness, vulnerability - these things will always be exploited. You need to protect the weak, ring-fence them, with something far stronger than empathy.

Storms are sex. They exist alongside and are indifferent to words and description and dissection.

My truth is that what doesn't kill you makes you weaker rather than stronger, although it makes you wiser.

It's a fact that people who are in a weakened position, whether physically or mentally, have this perception of the outer world as threatening. Everything that is unexpected or unknown is seen as a potential danger.

Man's freedom is finite and fallible

The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.

'Storm Warnings' is a poem about powerlessness - about a force so much greater than our human powers that while it can be measured and even predicted, it is beyond human control. All 'we' can do is create an interior space against the storm, an enclave of self-protection, though the winds of change till penetrate keyholes and 'unsealed apertures.'

For thousands of years, we have gained the power to control the world outside us but not to control the world inside. You could stop a river from flowing, but you could not stop your body from becoming old. You could kill mosquitoes, but you could not kill annoying thoughts buzzing inside your head.

So much of 'Mudbound' is about man's relationship to the land and to the elements. It's about the desire for control and how powerless we are against nature. We always knew we would shoot widescreen as a means to isolate a body in the frame and to highlight our own insignificance.

I have a duty to speak the truth as I see it and share not just my triumphs, not just the things that felt good, but the pain, the intense, often unmitigated pain. It is important to share how I know survival is survival and not just a walk throught the rain.

Nature! We are surrounded by her and locked in her clasp: powerless to leave her, and powerless to come closer to her. Unasked and unwarned she takes us up into the whirl of her dance, and hurries on with us till we are weary and fall from her arms.