--- title: "Meaning & Key Takeaway of: A year ago, I was at a dinner in…" description: "\"“A year ago, I was at a dinner in Amsterdam when the question came up of whether each of us loved his or her country. The German shuddered, the Dutch w..." image: "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/cca/rebecca-solnit-569_nature_a-year-ago-i-was-at-a-dinner-in-amsterda_207845.png" --- # A year ago, I was at a dinner in Amsterdam when the… ![“A year ago, I was at a dinner in Amsterdam when the question came up of whether each of us loved his or her country. The German shuddered, the Dutch were equivocal, the Brit said he was "comfortable" with Britain, the expatriate American said no. And I said yes. Driving across the arid lands, the…” quote by Rebecca Solnit](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/cca/rebecca-solnit-569_nature_a-year-ago-i-was-at-a-dinner-in-amsterda_207845.png) [Download](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/cca/rebecca-solnit-569_nature_a-year-ago-i-was-at-a-dinner-in-amsterda_207845.png) [Open image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/cca/rebecca-solnit-569_nature_a-year-ago-i-was-at-a-dinner-in-amsterda_207845.png) > ““A year ago, I was at a dinner in Amsterdam when the question came up of whether each of us loved his or her country. The German shuddered, the Dutch were equivocal, the Brit said he was "comfortable" with Britain, the expatriate American said no. And I said yes. Driving across the arid lands, the red lands, I wondered what it was I loved. the places, the sagebrush basins, the rivers digging themselves deep canyons through arid lands, the incomparable cloud formations of summer monsoons, the way the underside of clouds turns the same blue as the underside of a great blue heron's wings when the storm is about to break. Beyond that, for anything you can say about the United States, you can also say the opposite: we're rootless except we're also the Hopi, who haven't moved in several centuries; we're violent except we're also the Franciscans nonviolently resisting nucelar weapons out here; we're consumers except the West is studded with visionary environmentalists...and the landscape of the West seems like the stage on which such dramas are played out, a space without boundaries, in which anything can be realized, a moral ground, out here where your shadow can stretch hundreds of feet just before sunset, where you loom large, and lonely.”” [Rebecca Solnit](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/rebecca-solnit/) ## About This Quote This interpretation was drafted with AI assistance. It is one reading of the quote, not the author's own explanation. The speaker reflects on love for place, identity, and the paradoxes of the American West, seeing it as a boundless moral landscape where contradictions coexist. **In simple terms:** Loving a place involves embracing its contradictions and vastness. Key Takeaway Accept complexity in identity and landscape. Themes identity place contradiction environment freedom Mood contemplative melancholic inspirational Type essay philosophical reflective When to use this quote - travel writing - public speaking - personal essay Key Concepts American West national identity environmentalism spirituality Practical Applications - personal reflection - cultural analysis - environmental observation Questions to Reflect On - How do you reconcile love for a place with its injustices? - What does “rootless” mean to you? A Different Perspective The romantic view may overlook hardships faced by marginalized groups. ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ No ratings yet [Arid Lands](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/arid-lands-2152189/) [Environmentalists Landscape](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/environmentalists-landscape-2152192/) [Lands Incomparable](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/lands-incomparable-2152191/) [Lands Wondered](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/lands-wondered-2152190/) [Loved Country](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/loved-country-1791884/) [Nature](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/nature/) [Patriotism](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/patriotism/) [Politics](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/politics/) ## Related quotes > [I loved my country, and I hated him.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/lord-byron/i-loved-my-country-and-i-hated-him/) [Lord Byron](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/lord-byron/) > [Antonin Scalia and Donald Trump both. They love the country. They do not understand people who don't. They would love that everybody else loved…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/rush-limbaugh/antonin-scalia-and-donald-trump-both-they-love-the-country-they-do/) [Rush Limbaugh](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/rush-limbaugh/) > [My grandma - we called her Mamaw - loved her country.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/j-d-vance-2/my-grandma-we-called-her-mamaw-loved-her-country/) [J. D. Vance](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/j-d-vance-2/) > [I've always loved Country, folk, and the acoustic end of music.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/john-waite/i-ve-always-loved-country-folk-and-the-acoustic-end-of-music/) [John Waite](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/john-waite/) > [I think you get a lot of influence from what your parents play around you. So I always loved country, R&B and rock.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/gabby-barrett/i-think-you-get-a-lot-of-influence-from-what-your-parents-play-around/) [Gabby Barrett](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/gabby-barrett/) > [He loved his country as no other man has loved her, but no man deserved less at her hands.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/edward-everett-hale/he-loved-his-country-as-no-other-man-has-loved-her-but-no-man/) [Edward Everett Hale](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/edward-everett-hale/) > [“All I wanted to do was get back to Africa. We had not left it, yet, but when I would wake in the night…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/ernest-hemingway/all-i-wanted-to-do-was-get-back-to-africa-we-had-not-left-it-yet-but/) [Ernest Hemingway](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/ernest-hemingway/) > [Songwriting has always been my number one no matter what, but I've loved country music - where I'm from, northeast Louisiana, it's a town…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/lainey-wilson/songwriting-has-always-been-my-number-one-no-matter-what-but-i-ve/) [Lainey Wilson](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/lainey-wilson/) > [I always loved country music. But I didn't even know I could sing. I just knew I loved the music.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/cole-swindell/i-always-loved-country-music-but-i-didn-t-even-know-i-could-sing-i/) [Cole Swindell](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/cole-swindell/) > [I've always loved country music.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/tiffany-darwish/i-ve-always-loved-country-music/) [Tiffany Darwish](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/tiffany-darwish/) > [ I loved your country \[America\] before I knew it. ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/ignacy-jan-paderewski/i-loved-your-country-america-before-i-knew-it/) [Ignacy Jan Paderewski](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/ignacy-jan-paderewski/) > [That's why I've always loved country music. Whether it's sad, pumps you up, or it's breakup songs, it's all real-life things.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/cole-swindell/that-s-why-i-ve-always-loved-country-music-whether-it-s-sad-pumps-you/) [Cole Swindell](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/cole-swindell/) > [“Penny knew also she loved the country for its beauty. Cities could be magnificent, astounding, fantastic, but they were not consistently beautiful and simple.…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/dorothy-deming/penny-knew-also-she-loved-the-country-for-its-beauty-cities-could-be/) [Dorothy Deming](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/dorothy-deming/) > [I became friends with people from Canada and Oregon and the East Coast and the West Coast. Everybody loved country music just as much…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/lainey-wilson/i-became-friends-with-people-from-canada-and-oregon-and-the-east/) [Lainey Wilson](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/lainey-wilson/) > [My grandmother loved country music, and she's the one who really got me into country music. She had George Strait tapes, a bunch of…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/jon-pardi/my-grandmother-loved-country-music-and-she-s-the-one-who-really-got/) [Jon Pardi](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/jon-pardi/) ## More by Rebecca Solnit > [“Georgia O’Keeffe moved to rural New Mexico, from which she would sign her letters to the people she loved, “from the faraway nearby.” It…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/rebecca-solnit/georgia-o-keeffe-moved-to-rural-new-mexico-from-which-she-would-sign/) [Rebecca Solnit](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/rebecca-solnit/) > [Joy doesn't betray but sustains activism. And when you face a politics that aspires to make you fearful, alienated and isolated, joy is a…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/rebecca-solnit/joy-doesn-t-betray-but-sustains-activism-and-when-you-face-a-politics/) [Rebecca Solnit](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/rebecca-solnit/) > [“To love someone is to put yourself in their place, we say, which is to put ourself in their story, or figure out how…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/rebecca-solnit/to-love-someone-is-to-put-yourself-in-their-place-we-say-which-is-to/) [Rebecca Solnit](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/rebecca-solnit/) > [“People have always been good at imagining the end of the world, which is much easier to picture than the strange sidelong paths of…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/rebecca-solnit/people-have-always-been-good-at-imagining-the-end-of-the-world-which/) [Rebecca Solnit](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/rebecca-solnit/) > [“Whose maps are we trying to read? And what are we trying to draw? 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Maybe Persephone was glad to run off with the king of death to his underground realm, maybe…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/rebecca-solnit/i-wonder-now-about-demeter-and-persephone-maybe-persephone-was-glad/) [Rebecca Solnit](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/rebecca-solnit/) > [ \[In mountaineering, if\] we look for private experience rather than public history, even getting to the top becomes an optional narrative rather than the… ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/rebecca-solnit/in-mountaineering-if-we-look-for-private-experience-rather-than/) [Rebecca Solnit](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/rebecca-solnit/) > [For me, being in a car or on an airplane is like being in limbo. It's this dead zone between two places. But to…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/rebecca-solnit/for-me-being-in-a-car-or-on-an-airplane-is-like-being-in-limbo-it-s/) [Rebecca Solnit](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/rebecca-solnit/) > [“How do you calculate upon the unforeseen? It seems to be an art of recognizing the role of the unforeseen, of keeping your balance…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/rebecca-solnit/how-do-you-calculate-upon-the-unforeseen-it-seems-to-be-an-art-of/) [Rebecca Solnit](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/rebecca-solnit/) > [Walking shares with making and working that crucial element of engagement of the body and the mind with the world, of knowing the world…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/rebecca-solnit/walking-shares-with-making-and-working-that-crucial-element-of/) [Rebecca Solnit](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/rebecca-solnit/) > [“Marriage equality is a threat: to inequality. It’s a boon to everyone who values and benefits from equality. It’s for all of us.”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/rebecca-solnit/marriage-equality-is-a-threat-to-inequality-it-s-a-boon-to-everyone/) [Rebecca Solnit](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/rebecca-solnit/) > [“Mountaineering is always spoken of as though summiting is conquest, but as you get higher, the world gets bigger, and you feel smaller in…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/rebecca-solnit/mountaineering-is-always-spoken-of-as-though-summiting-is-conquest/) [Rebecca Solnit](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/rebecca-solnit/) > [“A procession is a participants' journey, while a parade is a performance with an audience.”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/rebecca-solnit/a-procession-is-a-participants-journey-while-a-parade-is-a/) [Rebecca Solnit](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/rebecca-solnit/) [Explore all 469 Rebecca Solnit quotes ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/rebecca-solnit/) ## More Nature quotes > [It is indeed a surprising and fortunate fact that nature can be expressed by relatively low-order mathematical functions.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/rudolf-carnap/it-is-indeed-a-surprising-and-fortunate-fact-that-nature-can-be/) [Rudolf Carnap](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/rudolf-carnap/) > [Remember that your natural state is joy.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wayne-dyer/remember-that-your-natural-state-is-joy/) [Wayne Dyer](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/wayne-dyer/) > [“THIS tale of my sore-troubled life I write,    To thank the God of nature, who conveyed    My soul to me, and with such care…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/anonymous/this-tale-of-my-sore-troubled-life-i-write-to-thank-the-god-of-nature/) [Anonymous](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/anonymous/) > [Put on my J's and dance the whole night away Im naughty by nature like Im hip-hop hooray With my hands in the sky,…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/anonymous/put-on-my-j-s-and-dance-the-whole-night-away-im-naughty-by-nature/) [Anonymous](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/anonymous/) > [Borrow trouble for yourself, if that's your nature, but don't lend it to your neighbours.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/rudyard-kipling/borrow-trouble-for-yourself-if-that-s-your-nature-but-don-t-lend-it/) [Rudyard Kipling](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/rudyard-kipling/) > [There is no human nature, since there is no god to conceive it.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/jean-paul-sartre/there-is-no-human-nature-since-there-is-no-god-to-conceive-it/) [Jean-Paul Sartre](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/jean-paul-sartre/) > [“Men mistook measurement for understanding. And they always had to put themselves at the center of everything. That was their greatest conceit. The earth…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/robert-harris/men-mistook-measurement-for-understanding-and-they-always-had-to-put/) [Robert Harris](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/robert-harris/) > [“She was, he knew- and had known very early, he supposed- one of those rare and always lovely humans whose moral nature was so…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/john-williams/she-was-he-knew-and-had-known-very-early-he-supposed-one-of-those/) [John Williams](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/john-williams/) > [“When the water covers the earth the sun will vanish the darkess and the cold will come.When the last dragon and the last Elf…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/silvana-de-mari/when-the-water-covers-the-earth-the-sun-will-vanish-the-darkess-and/) [Silvana de Mari](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/silvana-de-mari/) > [Well, The Day the Earth Caught Fire was a story... 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The German shuddered, the Dutch were equivocal, the Brit said he was \"comfortable\" with Britain, the expatriate American said no. And I said yes. Driving across the arid lands, the red lands, I wondered what it was I loved. the places, the sagebrush basins, the rivers digging themselves deep canyons through arid lands, the incomparable cloud formations of summer monsoons, the way the underside of clouds turns the same blue as the underside of a great blue heron's wings when the storm is about to break. Beyond that, for anything you can say about the United States, you can also say the opposite: we're rootless except we're also the Hopi, who haven't moved in several centuries; we're violent except we're also the Franciscans nonviolently resisting nucelar weapons out here; we're consumers except the West is studded with visionary environmentalists...and the landscape of the West seems like the stage on which such dramas are played out, a space without boundaries, in which anything can be realized, a moral ground, out here where your shadow can stretch hundreds of feet just before sunset, where you loom large, and lonely.”", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Rebecca Solnit" }, "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#website" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/rebecca-solnit/a-year-ago-i-was-at-a-dinner-in-amsterdam-when-the-question-came-up/", "about": { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Nature" }, "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/rebecca-solnit/a-year-ago-i-was-at-a-dinner-in-amsterdam-when-the-question-came-up/#quotation", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/cca/rebecca-solnit-569_nature_a-year-ago-i-was-at-a-dinner-in-amsterda_207845.png", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/cca/rebecca-solnit-569_nature_a-year-ago-i-was-at-a-dinner-in-amsterda_207845.png", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/cca/rebecca-solnit-569_nature_a-year-ago-i-was-at-a-dinner-in-amsterda_207845.png", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“A year ago, I was at a dinner in Amsterdam when the question came up of whether each of us loved his or her…” — Rebecca Solnit", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } }, { "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://sms4smile.com/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Quotes", "item": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "Rebecca Solnit", "item": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/rebecca-solnit/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 4, "name": "“A year ago, I was at...", "item": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/rebecca-solnit/a-year-ago-i-was-at-a-dinner-in-amsterdam-when-the-question-came-up/" } ], "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/rebecca-solnit/a-year-ago-i-was-at-a-dinner-in-amsterdam-when-the-question-came-up/#breadcrumb" }, { "@type": "WebSite", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#website", "name": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/", "publisher": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } }, { "@type": "Organization", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization", "name": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/", "logo": { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wp-content/themes/sq/assets/icons/icon-512.png", "width": 512, "height": 512 } } ] } ```