I could never teach people to be philosophers - and if I did, you could never make a gardener out of them.

The only ethical decision is to take responsibility for our own existence and that of our children.

I teach self-reliance, the world's most subversive practice. I teach people how to grow their own food, which is shockingly subversive. So, yes, it’s seditious. But it’s peaceful sedition.

The worst thing about permaculture is that it's extremely successful, but it has no center, and no hierarchy.

I'd come into town from the bush - after 28 years of field work in natural systems - and become an academic. So I turned my attention to humans, much as I had to possums in the forests.

Security can be found in renunciation of ownership over people, money, and real assets; to gain, keep or protect that which others need for periods of legitimate access. A lending library enables people to help themselves to information; a locked-up book collection is useful only to the person who owns it.

Anything that's any good is self-perpetuating.