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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.

Barbara Kingsolver

You know things are bad when a woman without any legs and who recently lost two of her own kids feels sorry for you.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Kids Sorry Two
Your dreams, what you hope for and all that, it’s not separate from your life. It grows right up out of it.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Dream Grows Out Right Separate
Growing food was the first activity that gave us enough prosperity to stay in one place, form complex social groups, tell our stories, and build our cities.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Cities Firsts Groups
Households that have lost the soul of cooking from their routines may not know what they are missing: the song of a stir-fry sizzle, the small talk of clinking measuring spoons, the yeasty scent of rising dough, the painting of flavors onto a pizza before it slides into the oven.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Animal Song Vegetables
She kept swimming out into life because she hadn’t yet found a rock to stand on.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Found Rocks Swimming
I never think that anything I’m writing is bluntly political in any way. I’m not going for commentary.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Political Thinking Writing
The most important thing about a person is always the thing you don’t know.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Important Knows Persons
It’s a great freedom to give up on love, and get on with everything else.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Everything Freedom Give Great Love
Forgive me, O Heavenly Father, according to the multitude of Thy mercies. I have lusted in my heart to break a man’s skull and scatter the stench of his brains across several people’s back yards.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Father Heart Men
Vengeance does not subtract any numbers from the equation of murder; it only adds them.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Doe Numbers Revenge
Height isn’t something you can have and just let be, like nice teeth or naturally curly hair. People have this idea you have to put it to use, playing basketball, for example, or observing the weather up there. If you are a girl, they feel a particular need to point your height out to you, as if you might not have noticed.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Basketball Girl Nice
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.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Alone Being Life Writing
Memory is a complicated thing, a relative to truth, but not its twin.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Criminal Inspirational Memories Mind
As long as I kept moving, my grief streamed out behind me like a swimmer’s long hair in water. I knew the weight was there but it didn’t touch me. Only when I stopped did the slick, dark stuff of it come floating around my face, catching my arms and throat till I began to drown. So I just didn’t stop.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Dark Grief Moving
Don’t wait for the muse. She has a lousy work ethic. Writers just write.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Ethics Waiting Work Writing
Value is not made of money, but a tender balance of expectation and longing.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Balance Expectations Pajamas

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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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Barbara Kingsolver Quotes