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School is about two parts ABCs to fifty parts Where Do I Stand in the Great Pecking Order of Humankind.

Barbara Kingsolver

Sleeping alone seemed unnatural to me, and pitiful, something done in hospitals or when you’re contagious.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Contagious Done Sleep
I concentrate on character, theme, language, structure, voice. It actually surprises me that no matter what I write, people declare it “intently political.” I’m just writing about the world I know, as it is. Wounds and griefs included.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Character Grief Writing
I personally am inclined to approach [housework] the way governments treat dissent: ignore it until it revolts.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Government Treats Way
I know I’m a rare person, a trained scientist who writes fiction, because so few contemporary novelists engage with science.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Novelist Rare Person Writing
It is harrowing for me to try to teach 20-year-old students, who earnestly want to improve their writing. The best I can think to tell them is: Quit smoking, and observe posted speed limits. This will improve your odds of getting old enough to be wise.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Thinking Wise Writing
It’s frightening when things you love appear suddenly changed from what you have always known.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Changed Frightening Love Things
Literature sucks you into another psyche. So the creation of empathy necessarily influences how you’ll behave to other people.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Empathy Literature People
Maybe life doesn’t get any better than this, or any worse, and what we get is just what we’re willing to find: small wonders, where they grow.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Grows Willing Wonder
Libraries are the one American institution you shouldn’t rip off.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Book Library Rip
If you’re standing in the manure pile, it’s somebody’s job to mention the stink.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Jobs Standing Stink
There were two things about Mama. One is she always expected the best out of me. And the other is that then no matter what I did, whatever I came home with, she acted like it was the moon I had just hung up in the sky and plugged in all the stars. Like I was that good.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Home Moon Stars
You see mother, you had no life of your own. They have no idea. One has only a life of one’s own.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Ideas Life Mother No Own
In a world as wrong as this one, all we can do is make things as right as we can.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Life Thing World Wrong
Thanks for this day, for all birds safe in their nests, for whatever this is, for life.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Bird Nests Safe
Everything truly important is washable.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Housework Important
Few people know so clearly what they want. Most people can’t even think what to hope for when they throw a penny in a fountain.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Fountain People Thinking Want

School is about two parts ABCs to fifty parts Where Do I Stand in the Great Pecking Order of Humankind.

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School is about two parts ABCs to fifty parts Where Do I Stand in the Great Pecking Order of Humankind.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Barbara Kingsolver Quotes