Fiction and essays can create empathy for the theoretical stranger.
BARBARA KINGSOLVERI rarely think of poetry as something I make happen; it is more accurate to say that it happens to me. Like a summer storm, a house afire, or the coincidence of both on the same day.
More Barbara Kingsolver Quotes
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I don’t bring expectations to any of my books. I don’t tell people what to do. I want to invite them in.
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The most important thing about a person is always the thing you don’t know.
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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 -
If you want sweet dreams, you’ve got to live a sweet life.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER -
Honk if you love Jesus, text while driving if you want to meet up.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER -
The talkers are rising above the thinkers.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER -
Close the door. Write with no one looking over your shoulder. Don’t try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. It’s the one and only thing you have to offer.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER -
What I want is so simple I almost can’t say it: elementary kindness.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER -
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.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER -
There is no perfect time to write. There is only now.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER -
I could never work out whether we were to view religion as a life-insurance policy or a life sentence.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER -
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 KINGSOLVER -
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 -
there are people who read my work and accuse me of being political! As far as I’m concerned that’s like accusing a dog of having a bark!
BARBARA KINGSOLVER -
I did it to win love, and to prove myself capable. Not to move mountains. In my opinions, mountains don’t move. They only look changed when you look down on them from great height.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER






