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There was a roaring in my ears and I lost track of what they were saying. I believe it was the physical manifestation of unbearable grief.

Barbara Kingsolver

…prodigal summer, the season of extravagant procreation. It could wear out everything in its path with its passionate excesses, but nothing alive with wings or a heart or a seed curled into itself in the ground could resist welcoming it back when it came.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Heart Summer Wings
To people who think of themselves as God’s houseguests, American enterprise must seem arrogant beyond belief. Or stupid. A nation of amnesiacs, proceeding as if there were no other day but today. Assuming the land could also forget what had been done to it.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Land Stupid Thinking
High fashion has the shelf life of potato salad. And when past its prime, it is similarly deadly.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Fashion Past Salad
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

Airplane Staring Steps
Every betrayal contains a perfect moment, a coin stamped heads or tails with salvation on the other side.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Betrayal Heads Perfect Tails
Plants do everything animals do, but slowly. They migrate, communicate, deceive, stalk their food and, with an ostentation of styles and perfumes to put the animal kingdom to shame, they make love. It’s just that catching them in flagrante delicto might require time-lapse photography.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

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

Found Rocks Swimming
I’m not pretending to be ingenuous; I know what I’m doing.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Knows Pretending
…nothing momentous comes in this world unless it comes on the shoulders of kindness.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Kindness Momentous Shoulder World
What you lose in blindness is the space around you, the place where you are, and without that you might not exist. You could be nowhere at all.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

might Reality Space
I didn’t study writing in school, I studied biology as an undergraduate and graduate student. So I think that I write fiction in the scientific way. I love invention, obviously; I love creation of character. But I do feel very rooted in the real world, even in the way that I create characters.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Real School Writing
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

Block Jobs Waiting
If you’re standing in the manure pile, it’s somebody’s job to mention the stink.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Jobs Standing Stink
The changes we dread most may contain our salvation.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Change May Salvation
I do my best work if I think about what it is I have to offer.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Best Work Offer Thinking
Thanks for this day, for all birds safe in their nests, for whatever this is, for life.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Bird Nests Safe
The happiest people are the ones with the most community.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Community People
The average food item on a U.S. grocery shelf has traveled farther than most families go on their annual vacations.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Animal Average Vacation
It’s what you do that makes your soul.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Dream Rabbits Soul
Few people know so clearly what they want. Most people can’t even think what to hope for when they throw a penny in a fountain.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Fountain People Thinking Want
Maybe life doesn’t get any better than this, or any worse, and what we get is just what we’re willing to find: small wonders, where they grow.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Grows Willing Wonder
Sometimes the strength of motherhood is greater than natural laws.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Family Inspiring Mothers Day
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.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Dirt might Today
A good title holds magic, some cognitive dissonance, a little grit between the teeth, but above all it is the jumping-off place into wonder.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Book Jumping Magic
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
People ask without wanting to know.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Ask Knows People
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

Dog Voice Water

There was a roaring in my ears and I lost track of what they were saying. I believe it was the physical manifestation of unbearable grief.

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There was a roaring in my ears and I lost track of what they were saying. I believe it was the physical manifestation of unbearable grief.

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