It’s terrible to lose somebody, but it’s also true that some people never have anybody to lose, and I think that’s got to be so much worse.
BARBARA KINGSOLVERFor Lou Ann, life itself was a life-threatening enterprise.
More Barbara Kingsolver Quotes
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Friends, there is nothing like your own family to make you appreciate strangers!
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Our house is like an empty cigarette packet, lying around reminding you what’s not in it.
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How strange to read of a place in a book, and then stand on it, listen to the birds sing, and spit on the cobbles if you want.
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It’s frightening when things you love appear suddenly changed from what you have always known.
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I’m of a fearsome mind to throw my arms around every living librarian who crosses my path, on behalf of the souls they never knew they saved.
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Close the door. Write with no one looking over your shoulder. Don’t try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. It’s the one and only thing you have to offer.
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The very least you can do in your life is to figure out what you hope for!
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You see mother, you had no life of your own. They have no idea. One has only a life of one’s own.
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I’ve about decided that’s the main thing that separates happy people from the other people: the feeling that you’re a practical item, with a use, like a sweater or a socket wrench.
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Nothing to do with nature, unless you count human nature.
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I grew up aware of all the people I depended on and who depended on me.
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Wherever I am, let me never forget to distinguish want from need
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Once you start cooking, one thing leads to another. A new recipe is as exciting as a blind date. A new ingredient, heaven help me, is an intoxicating affair.
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I did it to win love, and to prove myself capable. Not to move mountains. In my opinions, mountains don’t move. They only look changed when you look down on them from great height.
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I’ve seen how you can’t learn anything when you’re trying to look like the smartest person in the room.
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A certain feeling comes from throwing your good life away, and it is one part rapture.
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Even feigning surprise, pretending it was unexpected and saying a ritual thanks, is surely wiser than just expecting everything so carelessly.
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If you want sweet dreams, you’ve got to live a sweet life.
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In the day-to-day, farm work is stress relief for me. At the end of the day, I love having this other career – my anti-job – that keeps me in shape and gives me control over a vegetal domain.
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A sound-bite culture can’t discuss science very well. Exactly what we’re losing when we reduce biodiversity, the causes and consequences of global warming-these traumas can’t be adequately summarized in an evening news wrap-up.
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Codi: Gives you the willies, doesn’t it? The thought of raising kids in a place where the front yard ends in a two-hundred-foot drop? [referring to cliff dwellings] Loyd: No worse than raising up kids where the front yard ends in a freeway.
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I live in a rural part of Virginia surrounded by farms and farmers.
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Listen. Slide the weight from your shoulders and move forward. You are afraid you might forget, but you never will. You will forgive and remember.
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There is no perfect time to write. There is only now.
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This is how moths speak to each other. They tell their love across the fields by scent. There is no mouth, the wrong words are impossible, either a mate is there or he is not, and if so the pair will find each other in the dark.
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All of the promises of politicians, generals, madmen, and crusaders that war can create peace have yet to be borne out.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER