black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

We’re surrounded by mandates, and I believe that literature should be mandate-free. I feel very strongly about that.

Barbara Kingsolver

A person could spend most of a lifetime in retrospective terror, thinking of all the things one nearly didn’t do.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Lifetime Terror Thinking
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
Back then I was still appalled that God would set down his barefoot boy and girl dollies into an Eden where, presumably, He had just turned loose elephantiasis and microes that eat the human cornea. Now I understand, God is not just rooting fo the dollies.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Boys Eden Girl
There are some who’d hardly lift a finger for kindness, but they would haul up a load of rock to dump on some soul they think’s been too lucky.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Kindness Rocks Thinking
Given my own circumstances, I find that anything can turn out to belong nearly anywhere.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Circumstances Given Turns
You never knew which split second might be the zigzag bolt dividing all that went before from the everything that comes next.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

might Next Splits
The changes we dread most may contain our salvation.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Change May Salvation
Silence has many advantages…I write and draw in my notebook and I read anything I please.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Notebook Silence Writing
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.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Looks Patience World
If you never stepped on anybody’s toes, you never been for a walk.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Tact Toes Walks
The truth needs so little rehearsal.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Honesty Needs Truth
I don’t bring expectations to any of my books. I don’t tell people what to do. I want to invite them in.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Book Expectations People
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.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Grief Past Thinking
…our best task is to move forward without insisting others slide backward.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Moving Slides Tasks
…nothing momentous comes in this world unless it comes on the shoulders of kindness.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Kindness Momentous Shoulder World
I concentrate on character, theme, language, structure, voice. It actually surprises me that no matter what I write, people declare it “intently political.” I’m just writing about the world I know, as it is. Wounds and griefs included.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Character Grief Writing

We’re surrounded by mandates, and I believe that literature should be mandate-free. I feel very strongly about that.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

We’re surrounded by mandates, and I believe that literature should be mandate-free. I feel very strongly about that.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Barbara Kingsolver Quotes