Collapse Quotes

“One of the most important skills we can develop for collapse is thecapacity to listen.”

“One of the most important skills we can develop for collapse is thecapacity to listen.”

“Fundamentally, what all forms of positive thinking about collapse come down to is our own fear of death.”

“If we can practice opening to the crises in our personal lives as teaching moments, as evolutionary stepping stones, we will be far better prepared emotionally and spiritually for the trauma that collapse will foist on us and everyone around us.”

“That’s the thing about the collapse of civilization, Blake. It never happens according to plan – there’s no slavering horde of zombies. No actinic flash of thermonuclear war. No Earth-shuddering asteroid. The end comes in unforeseen ways; the stock market collapses, and then the banks, and then there is no food in the supermarkets, or the communications system goes down completely and inevitably, and previously amiable co-workers find themselves wrestling over the last remaining cookie that someone brought in before all the madness began.”

“Many countries collapsed totally just because nations of that country were sleeping like a log while the country is collapsing totally!”

“Jim Is there no other way? Claire We could just say no to him. Jim Can’t risk that. Collapse of conference, collapse of backbench support, collapse of Cabinet. Collapse of my career. The biggest disaster since Dunkirk. Humphrey I think not, Prime Minister. Jim Name a bigger one. Humphrey The Freedom of Information Act.”

“If collapse is anything, it is a planetary immersion in the maelstrom ofparadox. Unless we understand and honor paradox, we will end up, like all ofthe mainstream media on earth, asking all of the wrong questions.”

“The innumerable losses of industrial civilization’s collapse will, over time, bring forth a new story and a new relationship with people, resources, things, and the earth. It will necessitate living as if our very breath is a gift and every person in our lives is an opportunity to pass on the gifts we have received. The death of the old paradigm and all of the trappings of industrial civilization will providespace to forge new values, new relationships, and minimize, if not completely obliterate, the concept of debt from human consciousness.”

“There is no one story that will replace the American dream, but storieslike this one—and there are thousands—can inform the myth or mythswe create for building and preserving the next culture. In order to do so,however, we must recognize that we cannot live without myth, for it is anessential part of our humanity. If we attempt to do so—given the fact thatsomething in us needs myth—wewill only create more myths that echothe American dream—with themes of heroism, greed, entitlement, narcissism,exploitation, exceptionalism, and myriad abuses of power. How we prepare for and navigate collapse will provide the raw materials for the myths we make and will live by in a postindustrial world.”

“all that was left to me was certain images and all of them spoke to me of the collapse of a cruel world and the slow construction in its stead of another world, equally cruel.”