Bennett’s musings have an ethical component: if a nuisance tree, or a dead tree, or a dead rat is my kin, then everything is kin—even a piece of trash. And I’m more likely to value things that are kindred to me, seeing them as notable and worthy in themselves

being genuinely open to and affected by everything around us means that there is no picking and choosing. It is everything or nothing—the good, the bad, and the ugly

Bennett uses the phrase “thing power” to capture the lively and active qualities of objects

take perspectives that seem implausible and find the good intuitions embodied in them, and then go with it

Human beings have a lot of difficult work to do if we’re to learn to recognize the inherent worth of all vibrant matter.

Perhaps the New Age crystal enthusiast and the experimental scientist have something in common.

Non-hoarders can disregard the inherent vibrancy of matter because we live in a modern world in which the categories of matter and life are kept separate. “The quarantines of matter and life encourage us to ignore the vitality of matter and the lively powers of material formations

Stuff has agency. Inanimate matter is not inert. Everything is always doing something