I think Americans are so poor it's pitiful, because you don't understand the natural world at all.

To create a mess in which we perish by our own inaction makes nonsense of our claim to consciousness and morality

The first time I saw a review of one of my permaculture books was three years after I first started writing on it. The review started with, "Permaculture Two is a seditious book." And I said, "At last someone understands what permaculture's about."

Permaculture principles focus on thoughtful designs for small-scale intensive systems which are labor efficient and which use biological resources instead of fossil fuels. Designs stress ecological connections and closed energy and material loops. The core of permaculture is design and the working relationships and connections between all things.

Anything that's any good is self-perpetuating.

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

Sitting at our back doorsteps, all we need to live a good life lies about us. Sun, wind, people, buildings, stones, sea, birds and plants surround us. Cooperation with all these things brings harmony, opposition to them brings disaster and chaos.