Richard Powers
- The Overstory
That's the trouble with people, their root problem. Life runs alongside them, unseen. Right here, right next. Creating the soil. Cycling water. Trading in nutrients. Making weather. Building atmosphere. Feeding and curing and sheltering more kinds of creatures than people know how to count. A chorus of living woods sings to the woman: If your mind were only a slightly greener thing, we'd drown you in meaning. The pines she leans against says: Listen. There's something you need to hear.
Richard Powers
- The Overstory
Their firstborn dies in infancy, killed by a thing that doesn't yet have a name. There are no microbes, yet. God is the lone taker of children, snatching even placeholder souls from one world to the other, according to obscure timetables.