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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.

Barbara Kingsolver

The truth needs so little rehearsal.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Honesty Needs Truth
Does a man become a revolutionary out of the belief he’s entitled to joy rather than submission?
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Joy Men Rather Submission
I’m of a fearsome mind to throw my arms around every living librarian who crosses my path, on behalf of the souls they never knew they saved.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Library Mind Soul
Poetry feels like a country I visit without a passport, where I look around furtively, grab hold of something precious, and try to smuggle it back across the border. Any poem I get written down feels like contraband to me.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Borders Country Trying
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
It kills you to see them grow up. But I guess it would kill you quicker if they didn’t.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Daughter Day Mom Mother
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

Believe Grief Track
What I want is so simple I almost can’t say it: elementary kindness.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Kindness Simple Want
Sleeping alone seemed unnatural to me, and pitiful, something done in hospitals or when you’re contagious.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Contagious Done Sleep
I live in a rural part of Virginia surrounded by farms and farmers.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Farmers Farms Virginia
People ask without wanting to know.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Ask Knows People
Global commerce is driven by a single conviction: the inalienable right to earn profit, regardless of any human cost.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Cost Greed Money
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

Kids Sorry Two
It’s frightening when things you love appear suddenly changed from what you have always known.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Changed Frightening Love Things
Once you start cooking, one thing leads to another. A new recipe is as exciting as a blind date. A new ingredient, heaven help me, is an intoxicating affair.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Animal Miracle Vegetables
Wherever I am, let me never forget to distinguish want from need
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Charity Needs Want
Literature is one of the few kinds of writing in the world that does not tell you what to buy, want, see, be, or believe. It’s more like conversation, raising new questions and inspiring you to answer them for yourself.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Believe Moving Writing
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

Father Heart Men
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
Memory is a complicated thing, a relative to truth, but not its twin.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Criminal Inspirational Memories Mind
The bad thing about small-town life is that everybody knows your business…I suppose that is my central obsession. What we owe to society, what we owe to ourselves.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Business Know Obsession Small Suppose Town
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

Blow Blue Sky
People read books to escape the uncertainties of life.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Book Life People Uncertainty
Alice wonders if other women in the middle of the night have begun to resent their Formica.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Middle Night Wonder
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
Even feigning surprise, pretending it was unexpected and saying a ritual thanks, is surely wiser than just expecting everything so carelessly.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Animal Miracle Vegetables
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

Thinking Wise Writing

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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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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Popular Authors

More Barbara Kingsolver Quotes