Love, sooner or later, forces us out of time… Of all that we feel and do, all the virtues and all the sins, love alone crowds us at last over the edge of the world.

Wendell Berry

Love At Last

Topic: Love, Compassion, & Kindness

But love, sooner or later, forces us out of time. It does not accept that limit. Of all that we feel and do, all the virtues and all the sins, love alone crowds us at last over the edge of the world. For love is always more than a little strange here. It is not explainable or even justifiable. It is itself the justifier. We do not make it. If it did not happen to us, we could not imagine it. It includes the world and time as a pregnant woman includes her child whose wrongs she will suffer and forgive. It is in the world but is not altogether of it. It is of eternity. It takes us there when it most holds us here.

Wendell Berry

Wendell Berry was born in Henry County, Kentucky, on August 5, 1934. This region has not only been his lifelong home but also the inspiration for much of his writing. He grew up understanding the rhythms of the land, a knowledge that would deeply influence his roles as both a writer and a farmer.

He has produced a diverse range of works, spanning poetry, essays, and novels. A consistent theme across his writing is the connection between humans and nature, informed by his firsthand experience working on his Kentucky farm. As an academic, Berry taught English, further establishing his foothold in the literary community.

Beyond his personal achievements, Berry's family has played a significant role in his life. His close relationships, especially with those who share his ties to Kentucky, have further anchored his love for the land and community. While he has been a voice for sustainable farming and conservation, his writings also often touch upon the intricate dynamics of family and community life in rural America.

Humanism, Arts and Sciences
Jayber Crow

Berry, Wendell. Jayber Crow. Counterpoint LLC, 2000. [Wendell Berry, via his book's main character: Jayber Crow].

Wendell Berry

Theme: Love

About Wendell Berry’s Quote [Brief Commentary]

“But love, sooner or later, forces us out of time” is from Wendell Berry’s novel Jayber Crow. It is spoken by the character Jayber Crow, who is a cobbler in the fictional town of Port William, Kentucky.

In the quote, Jayber is reflecting on the nature of love. He says that love is something that transcends time and space. It is not something that we can control or explain. It is simply something that happens to us.

Jayber also says that love is a force that can take us out of ourselves and connect us to something larger than ourselves. It can make us feel like we are part of something eternal.

About Wendell Berry’s Quote [Longer Commentary]

The quote is significant because it explores the power of love. It suggests that love is not just a feeling, but a force that can change our lives. It can make us more compassionate, more understanding, and more connected to the world around us.

The quote is also significant because it comes from a character who is deeply familiar with the limits of time and space. Jayber is a cobbler, and he spends his days working with his hands. He knows that the world is a finite place, and that time is always moving forward. But he also knows that love can help us to transcend those limits. It can help us to find meaning and purpose in our lives, even in the face of death and loss.

The quote is a beautiful and poetic expression of the power of love. It is a reminder that love is not something to be taken for granted. It is a gift that can change our lives for the better.

Love and the World We Live In by Wendell Berry

I take literally the statement in the Gospel of John that God loves the world. I believe the world was created and approved by love, that it subsists, coheres, and endures by love, and that, insofar as it is redeemable, it can be redeemed only by love. I believe that divine love, incarnate and indwelling in the world, summons the world always toward wholeness, which ultimately is reconciliation and atonement with God.

This is also a fallen world. It involves error and disease, ignorance and partiality, sin and death. If this world is a place where we may learn of our involvement in immortal love, as I believe it is, still such learning is only possible here because that love involves us so inescapably in the limits, suffering and sorrow of mortality.

—Wendell Berry [Citizenship Papers: Essays, 2004].

Additional Wendell Berry Poems and Quotes

THE PEACE OF WILD THINGS

“When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.”

—Wendell Berry [The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry].

“I see that the life of this place is always emerging beyond expectation or prediction or typicality, that it is unique, given to the world minute by minute, only once, never to be repeated. And this is when I see that this life is a miracle, absolutely worth having, absolutely worth saving. We are alive within mystery, by miracle.”

—Wendell Berry [Life is a Miracle: An Essay Against Modern Superstition].

Love At Last

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