Insomnia’s different,” I said. It was hard to explain this to people. “You know the light that comes on when you open the refrigerator door? Just imagine it stays on all the time, even after you close the door. That’s what it’s like in my head. The light stays on.
BARBARA KINGSOLVERThat was when we smelled the rain. It was so strong it seemed like more than just a smell. When we stretched out our hands we could practically feel it rising up from the ground. I don’t know how a person could ever describe that scent.
More Barbara Kingsolver Quotes
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Fiction and essays can create empathy for the theoretical stranger.
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I had decided early on that if I couldn’t dress elegant, I’d dress memorable.
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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.
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…our best task is to move forward without insisting others slide backward.
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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.
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If you want sweet dreams, you’ve got to live a sweet life.
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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.
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Our childhood had passed over into history overnight. The transition was unnoticed by anyone but ourselves.
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High fashion has the shelf life of potato salad. And when past its prime, it is similarly deadly.
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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.
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Mr. Shepherd, ye cannot stop a bad thought from coming into your head. But ye need not pull up a chair and bide it sit down.” – Mrs. Brown
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Every betrayal contains a perfect moment, a coin stamped heads or tails with salvation on the other side.
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You could love your crazy people, even admire them, instead of resenting that they’re not self-sufficient.
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It’s terrible to lose somebody, but it’s also true that some people never have anybody to lose, and I think that’s got to be so much worse.
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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