Hoagy Carmichael
American composer, pianist, singer, actor and bandleader (1899-1981)
Wendell Berry is an acclaimed American novelist, poet, essayist, environmental activist, cultural critic, and farmer. He is known for his agrarian themes and novels set in the rural community of Port William, Kentucky. Berry has received numerous prestigious awards, including the National Humanities Medal and induction into the Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame.
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About the Wendell Berry
Wendell Erdman Berryis an American novelist, poet, essayist, environmental activist, cultural critic, and farmer. Closely identified with rural Kentucky, Berry developed many of his agrarian themes in the early essays of The Gift of Good Landand The Unsettling of America (1977). His attention to the culture and economy of rural communities is also found in the novels and stories of Port William, such as A Place on Earth (1967), Jayber Crow (2000), and That Distant Land (2004).
He is an elected member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers, a recipient of the National Humanities Medal, and the Jefferson Lecturer for 2012. He is also a 2013 Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and, since 2014, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Berry was named the recipient of the 2013 Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award. On January 28, 2015, he became the first living writer to be inducted into the Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame.
Frequently Asked Questions
Wendell Berry is an American novelist, poet, essayist, environmental activist, cultural critic, and farmer. He is closely identified with rural Kentucky and is known for his agrarian themes.
Wendell Berry’s literary work often explores the culture and economy of rural communities, as seen in his novels and stories set in the fictional town of Port William, Kentucky.
Wendell Berry is an elected member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers, a recipient of the National Humanities Medal, and the Jefferson Lecturer for 2012. He is also a 2013 Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Wendell Berry was born on August 5, 1934.
In 2015, Wendell Berry became the first living writer to be inducted into the Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame.
Wendell Berry’s notable works include the early essay collections ,The Gift of Good Land, (1981) and ,The Unsettling of America, (1977), as well as the novels and stories of the Port William series, such as ,A Place on Earth, (1967), ,Jayber Crow, (2000), and ,That Distant Land, (2004).
Wendell Berry is an environmental activist and farmer who is closely identified with rural Kentucky. He has developed many of his agrarian themes in his literary work.
12 Quotes by Wendell Berry
- 1.
It is not from ourselves that we learn to be better than we are.
Wendell BerryAmerican writer
- 2.
All right, every day ain’t going to be the best day of your life, don’t worry about that. If you stick to it you hold the possibility open that you will have better days.
Wendell BerryAmerican writer
- 3.
I am not bound for any public place, but for ground of my own where I have planted vines and orchard trees, and in the heat of the day climbed up into the healing shadow of the woods.
Wendell BerryAmerican writer
- 4.
We learn from our gardens to deal with the most urgent question of the time: How much is enough?
Wendell BerryAmerican writer
- 5.
The care of the Earth is our most ancient and most worthy, and after all our most pleasing responsibility. To cherish what remains of it and to foster its renewal is our only hope.
Wendell BerryAmerican writer
- 6.
These are people who are capable of devotion, public devotion, to justice. They meant what they said and every day that passes, they mean it more.
Wendell BerryAmerican writer
- 7.
I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief… For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
Wendell BerryAmerican writer
- 8.
The past is our definition. We may strive, with good reason, to escape it, or to escape what is bad in it, but we will escape it only by adding something better to it.
Wendell BerryAmerican writer
- 9.
To cherish what remains of the Earth and to foster its renewal is our only legitimate hope of survival.
Wendell BerryAmerican writer
- 10.
Whether we and our politicians know it or not, Nature is party to all our deals and decisions, and she has more votes, a longer memory, and a sterner sense of justice than we do.
Wendell BerryAmerican writer
- 11.
Better than any argument is to rise at dawn and pick dew-wet red berries in a cup.
Wendell BerryAmerican writer
- 12.
We cannot comprehend what comprehends us.
Wendell BerryAmerican writer