Don’t wait for the muse. She has a lousy work ethic. Writers just write.
BARBARA KINGSOLVERWe’re animals. We’re born like every other mammal and we live our whole lives around disguised animal thoughts.
More Barbara Kingsolver Quotes
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I grew up aware of all the people I depended on and who depended on me.
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the conspicuous consumption of limited resources has yet to be accepted widely as a spiritual error, or even bad manners
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School is about two parts ABCs to fifty parts Where Do I Stand in the Great Pecking Order of Humankind.
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Vengeance does not subtract any numbers from the equation of murder; it only adds them.
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Because I could not stop for death he kindly stopped for me, or paused at least to strike a glancing blow with his sky-blue mouth as he passed.
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I made it to the childbearing phase without TV dependence, then looked around and thought, Well gee, why start now? Why get a pet python on the day you decide to raise fuzzy little gerbils?
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Sometimes the strength of motherhood is greater than natural laws.
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A writer’s occupational hazard: I think of eavesdropping as minding my business.
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Be still, and the world is bound to turn herself inside out to entertain you. Everywhere you look, joyful noise is clanging to drown out quiet desperation.
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I have seen women looking at jewelry ads with a misty eye and one hand resting on the heart, and I only know what they’re feeling because that’s how I read the seed catalogs in January.
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The very least you can do in your life is to figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof.
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One of the very first things I figured out about life…is that it’s better to be a hopeful person than a cynical, grumpy one, because you have to live in the same world either way, and if you’re hopeful, you have more fun.
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Last time I talked to her she didn’t sound like herself. She’s depressed. It’s awful what happens when people run out of money. They start thinking they’re no good.
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From the fallen tree everybody makes firewood.
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The thing is, it’s my own fault. I just can’t put up with a person that won’t go out of his way for me. And that’s what a man is. Somebody that won’t go out of his way for you. I bet it says that in the dictionary.
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If it’s important, your heart remembers.
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Wars and elections are both too big and too small to matter in the long run. The daily work – that goes on, it adds up.
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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.
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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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Silence has many advantages…I write and draw in my notebook and I read anything I please.
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The most assiduous task of parenting is to divine the difference between boundaries and bondage.
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You don’t think you’ll live past it and you don’t really. The person you were is gone. But the half of you that’s still alive wakes up one day and takes over again.
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My worst nightmare is being stuck somewhere with nothing to read.
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Recall that whatever lofty things you might accomplish today, you will do them only because you first ate something that grew out of the dirt.
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You can be as earnest and ridiculous as you need to be, if you don’t attempt it in isolation. The ridiculously earnest are known to travel in groups. And they are known to change the world.
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I learned to produce whether I wanted to or not. It would be easy to say oh, I have writer’s block, oh, I have to wait for my muse. I don’t. Chain that muse to your desk and get the job done.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER