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A flower is a plant’s way of making love.

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

Alone Being Life Writing
I 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.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Poetry Summer Thinking
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
The first steps toward stewardship are awareness, appreciation, and the selfish desire to have the things around for our kids to see. Presumably the unselfish motives will follow as we wise up.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Appreciation Selfish Wise
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’s the one thing we never quite get over: that we contain our own future.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Get One Thing Over
We agreed with him in principal – we were little scientists, born and bred. But children robbed of love will dwell on magic.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Children Littles Magic
I know I’m a rare person, a trained scientist who writes fiction, because so few contemporary novelists engage with science.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Novelist Rare Person Writing
Alice wonders if other women in the middle of the night have begun to resent their Formica.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Middle Night Wonder
Why is it that only girls stand on the sides of their feet? As if they’re afraid to plant themselves?
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Feet Feminist Girl
I learned to write by reading the kind of books I wished I’d written.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Book Reading Writing
Everything truly important is washable.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Housework Important
I personally am inclined to approach [housework] the way governments treat dissent: ignore it until it revolts.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Government Treats Way
Sleeping alone seemed unnatural to me, and pitiful, something done in hospitals or when you’re contagious.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Contagious Done Sleep
Thanks for this day, for all birds safe in their nests, for whatever this is, for life.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Bird Nests Safe
Because I write fiction that is based in the real world, it’s going to lead people into some of the modern dilemmas and concerns and even catastrophes that they will think about in a new way.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER

Real Thinking Writing

A flower is a plant’s way of making love.

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A flower is a plant’s way of making love.

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