The artist deals with what cannot be said in words. The novelist says in words what cannot be said in words.
BARBARA KINGSOLVERThe 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.
More Barbara Kingsolver Quotes
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Vengeance does not subtract any numbers from the equation of murder; it only adds them.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER -
Thanks for this day, for all birds safe in their nests, for whatever this is, for life.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER -
Now, see, that’s why you want Internet friends. You can find people just exactly like you. Screw your neighbors and your family, too messy…the trouble is, once you filter out everybody that doesn’t agree with you, all that’s left is maybe this one retired surfer guy living in Idaho.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER -
Wherever I am, let me never forget to distinguish want from need
BARBARA KINGSOLVER -
He needs to go rub his soul against life.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER -
Global commerce is driven by a single conviction: the inalienable right to earn profit, regardless of any human cost.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER -
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?
BARBARA KINGSOLVER -
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 -
If you never stepped on anybody’s toes, you never been for a walk.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER -
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.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER -
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 -
Will you explain to me why people encourage delusional behaviour in children, and medicate it in adults?
BARBARA KINGSOLVER -
People read books to escape the uncertainties of life.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER -
A flower is a plant’s way of making love.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER -
Eaters must understand, how we eat determines how the world is used.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER -
Sadness is more or less like a head cold – with patience, it passes. Depression is like cancer.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER -
Empathy is really the opposite of spiritual meanness. It’s the capacity to understand that every war is both won and lost. And that someone else’s pain is as meaningful as your own.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER -
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 -
I’m not pretending to be ingenuous; I know what I’m doing.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER -
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.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER -
the conspicuous consumption of limited resources has yet to be accepted widely as a spiritual error, or even bad manners
BARBARA KINGSOLVER -
The substance of grief is not imaginary. It’s as real as rope or the absence of air, and like both those things, it can kill.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER -
Good fiction creates empathy. A novel takes you somewhere and asks you to look through the eyes of another person, to live another life.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER -
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 -
Every time I step onto an airplane, I turn to the right and take a good, hard stare into the maw of the engine. I don’t know what I’m looking for. I just do it.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER