We’re surrounded by mandates, and I believe that literature should be mandate-free. I feel very strongly about that.
BARBARA KINGSOLVERHope is a renewable option: If you run out of it at the end of the day, you get to start over in the morning.
More Barbara Kingsolver Quotes
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She is inhumanly alone. And then, all at once, she isn’t.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER -
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.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER -
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.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER -
Stop a minute, right where you are. Relax your shoulders, shake your head and spine like a dog shaking off cold water. Tell that imperious voice in your head to be still.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER -
Vengeance does not subtract any numbers from the equation of murder; it only adds them.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER -
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.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER -
This is how Americans think. You believe that if something terrible happens to someone, they must have deserved it.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER -
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.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER -
The first steps toward stewardship are awareness, appreciation, and the selfish desire to have the things around for our kids to see. Presumably the unselfish motives will follow as we wise up.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER -
organization is the religion of the single parent.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER -
He needs to go rub his soul against life.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER -
Like kids who only ever get socks for Christmas, but still believe with all their hearts in Santa.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER -
She kept swimming out into life because she hadn’t yet found a rock to stand on.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER -
There are days when I am envious of my hens: when I hunger for a purpose as perfect and sure as a single daily egg.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER -
Eaters must understand, how we eat determines how the world is used.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER