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Barbara Kingsolver Quotes - Page 14

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I wonder that religion can live or die on the strength of a faint, stirring breeze. The scent trail shifts, causing the predator to miss the pounce. One god draws in the breath of life and rises; another god expires.

I wonder that religion can live or die on the strength of a faint, stirring breeze. The scent trail shifts, causing the predator to miss the pounce. One god draws in the breath of life and rises; another god expires.

Barbara Kingsolver
Missing, Scent, Predator
Barbara Kingsolver (2008). “The Poisonwood Bible”, p.122, Faber & Faber

It's tough to break yourself as news to a town that already knows you.

Barbara Kingsolver
News, Towns, Tough
Barbara Kingsolver (2009). “Animal Dreams: A Novel”, p.13, Harper Collins

There's such a gulf between yourself and who you were then, but people speak to that other person and it answers; it's like having a stranger as a house guest in your skin.

Barbara Kingsolver
People, House, Skins
Barbara Kingsolver (2009). “Animal Dreams: A Novel”, p.40, Harper Collins

The things I carry closest to my heart are things I can't own.

Barbara Kingsolver
Heart, My Heart, Closest

Americans who read and think are patriots of the first order. The kind who know enough to roll their eyes whenever anyone tries to claim sole custody of the flag and weild it as a blunt instrument. There are as many ways to love America as there are Americans, and our country needs us all.

Barbara Kingsolver
Country, Eye, Thinking

The way I see it, a person isn't nothing more than a scarecrow... The only difference between one that stands up good and one that blows over is what kind of a stick they're stuck up there on.

Barbara Kingsolver
Blow, Differences, Way
Barbara Kingsolver (2009). “The Bean Trees: A Novel”, p.5, Harper Collins

Being a novelist and being a mother have exactly coincided in my life: the call from my agent saying that I had a contract for my first novel - that was on my answering phone message when I got back from the hospital with my first child.

Barbara Kingsolver
Mother, Children, Phones

I used to think religion was just more of the same thing. Dump responsibility on the big guy. Now I see an importance in that. It's a relief to accept that not everything is under your control.

Barbara Kingsolver
Responsibility, Thinking, Guy
"Among the wild things" by Suzie Mackenzie, www.theguardian.com. November 17, 2000.

I can count all the ways in which being a mother has enriched my understanding of the world, of character, my sense of the future and my attachment to it. I can't imagine what kind of writer I'd be if I didn't have my kids.

Barbara Kingsolver
Mother, Character, Kids

...our best task is to move forward without insisting others slide backward.

Barbara Kingsolver
Moving, Tasks, Slides
Barbara Kingsolver (2009). “The Lacuna”, p.226, Faber & Faber

What a writer can do, what a fiction writer or a poet or an essay writer can do is re-engage people with their own humanity.

Barbara Kingsolver
People, Humanity, Fiction

Pure and unblemished souls must taste very bland, with an aftertaste of bitterness.

Barbara Kingsolver
Soul, Taste, Bitterness
Barbara Kingsolver (2008). “The Poisonwood Bible”, p.117, Faber & Faber

Downstream is always someone else's up.

Barbara Kingsolver
Barbara Kingsolver (2008). “The Poisonwood Bible”, p.148, Faber & Faber

I don't *ever* write about real people. Art is supposed to be better than that. If you want a slice of life, look out the window.

Barbara Kingsolver
Art, Real, Writing

I've never gotten over high school, to the extent that I'm still a little surprised that my friends want to hang out with me.

Barbara Kingsolver
School, Want, Littles
Barbara Kingsolver (2011). “High Tide in Tucson”, p.35, Faber & Faber

Those first few weeks are an unearthly season. From the outside you remain so ordinary, no one can tell from looking that you have experienced an earthquake of the soul. You've been torn asunder, invested with an ancient, incomprehensible magic. It's the one thing that we never quite get over: that we contain our own future.

Barbara Kingsolver
Earthquakes, Soul, Magic

I live in a rural part of Virginia surrounded by farms and farmers.

Barbara Kingsolver
Virginia, Farmers, Farms
"Barbara Kingsolver Sets a Fire". Interview With Royal Young, www.interviewmagazine.com. November 7, 2012.

Food is the rare moral arena in which the ethical choice is generally the one more likely to make you groan with pleasure.

Barbara Kingsolver
Choices, Arena, Moral
Barbara Kingsolver (2010). “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: Our Year of Seasonal Eating”, p.22, Faber & Faber

It is completely usual for me to get up in the morning, take a look around, and laugh out loud.

Barbara Kingsolver
Morning, Laughing, Usual
Barbara Kingsolver (2009). “High Tide in Tucson: Essays from Now or Never”, p.19, Harper Collins

Listen. To live is to be marked. To live is to change, to acquire the words of a story, and that is the only celebration we mortals really know. In perfect stillness, frankly, I've only found sorrow.

Barbara Kingsolver
Life, Inspiring, Perfect
Barbara Kingsolver (2008). “The Poisonwood Bible”, p.291, Faber & Faber

A woman knows she can walk away from a pot to tend something else and the pot will go on boiling; if she couldn't this world would end at once.

Barbara Kingsolver
Goes On, World, Pot
Barbara Kingsolver (2011). “Pigs in Heaven”, p.167, Faber & Faber

You always need that spark of imagination. Sometimes I'm midway through a book before it happens. However, I don't wait for the muse to descend, I sit down every day and I work when I'm not delivering lambs on the farm.

Barbara Kingsolver
Book, Imagination, Waiting

When people are frightened about going hungry and paying their mortgages, a scarcity model begins to prevail; they fear someone else will get their piece of the pie.

Barbara Kingsolver
Pie, People, Scarcity
"A life in writing" by Maya Jaggi, www.theguardian.com. June 11, 2010.

Southern Appalachians have been ridiculed since the country began. In fiction, they're usually depicted in a cartoonish manner. The region is poor, and very suspicious of outsiders, so there's a sort of 'us versus them' situation. They're easy to poke fun at.

Barbara Kingsolver
Country, Fun, Southern

My morning begins with trying not to get up before the sun rises. But when I do, it's because my head is too full of words, and I just need to get to my desk and start dumping them into a file. I always wake with sentences pouring into my head.

Barbara Kingsolver
Morning, Trying, Needs
"Barbara Kingsolver: How I Write". Interview with Noah Charney, www.thedailybeast.com. December 5, 2012.

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