1960s Quote by Jeff VanderMeer
“We should feel an urgency about our environment and what's been done to it by human action and inaction. I wouldn't say there's a resurgence - I think it's been with us all along, and especially since the 1960s and 1970s, but it is true that there's almost a subsection of the bookstore devoted to it now. Personally, I've been addressing these issues in my long and short fiction since the late 1980s - basically since the beginning of my career.”
About This Quote
Source Interview: The New Yorker, “The Ecological Imagination of Jeff VanderMeer”, 2022
The quote stresses the long‑standing urgency of environmental stewardship, noting that awareness has grown but the crisis has always existed.
In simple terms: Environmental urgency is long‑standing, not new.
Key Takeaway
Act now to protect the planet.
Themes
environment
urgency
activism
history
literature
Mood
concerned
determined
hopeful
Type
call to action
reflective
inspirational
When to use this quote
- Writing fiction
- public speaking
- teaching
- policy advocacy
Key Concepts
Ecocriticism
anthropocene
cultural memory
Questions to Reflect On
- How can literature inspire concrete environmental action?
- What barriers prevent people from acting on known crises?
A Different Perspective
Urgency can be paralyzed by fear or denial.
![“Nearly all the writing of our time is likely to disappear in a hundred years. Certainly most readers - and nearly all critics - feel that [Kurt] Vonnegut started to repeat himself, to grow increasingly self-indulgent and meandering, and to sometimes just blather in his later work. But his books up…” quote by Michael Dirda](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/ed7/michael-dirda-3414_1960s_nearly-all-the-writing-of-our-time-is-li_13506.jpg)
![“[In the 1960s]...you could take LSD but you couldn't wear a pantsuit.” quote by Betsey Johnson](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/29a/betsey-johnson-11907_1960s_in-the-1960s-you-could-take-lsd-but-you_14174.jpg)
