Authors:

Barbara Kingsolver Quotes - Page 4

All Quotes Art Balance Bitterness Change Character Childhood Children Choices Church Country Culture Discipline Earth Empathy Expectations Feelings Giving Grief Growing Up Heart Heaven Home Hope House Human Nature Ignorance Inspiring Jesus Kindness Life Literature Losing Magic Making Love Memories Mom Moon Morning Passion Past Prayer Rain Reading Religion Running Salvation School Silence Skins Sleep Smoking Soul Spring Summer Today Waiting War Water Winning Work Out Writing
Life proceeds, it enrages. The untouched ones spend their luck without a thought, believing they deserve it.

Life proceeds, it enrages. The untouched ones spend their luck without a thought, believing they deserve it.

Barbara Kingsolver
Believe, Luck, Deserve

But kids don't stay with you if you do it right. It's the one job where, the better you are, the more surely you won't be needed in the long run.

Barbara Kingsolver
Mother, Running, Jobs
Barbara Kingsolver (2009). “Pigs in Heaven: Novel, A”, p.25, Harper Collins

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.

Barbara Kingsolver
Moving, Grief, Dark
Barbara Kingsolver (2008). “The Poisonwood Bible”, p.288, Faber & Faber

People read books to escape the uncertainties of life.

Barbara Kingsolver
Book, People, Uncertainty Of Life

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, Writing, Thinking

a meaningless phrase repeated again and again begins to resemble truth.

Barbara Kingsolver
Phrases, Repetition, Again And Again

...prodigal summer, the season of extravagant procreation. It could wear out everything in its path with its passionate excesses, but nothing alive with wings or a heart or a seed curled into itself in the ground could resist welcoming it back when it came.

Barbara Kingsolver
Summer, Heart, Wings
Barbara Kingsolver (2008). “Prodigal Summer”, p.47, Faber & Faber

It's a funny thing: people often ask how I discipline myself to write. I can't begin to understand the question. For me, the discipline is turning off the computer and leaving my desk to do something else.

Barbara Kingsolver
Writing, Funny Things, Discipline
"Barbara Kingsolver: How I Write". Interview with Noah Charney, www.thedailybeast.com. December 5, 2012.

Gilbert has established herself as a straight-up storyteller who dares us into adventures of worldly discovery, and this novel stands as a winning next act. “The Signature of All Things” is a bracing homage to the many natures of genius and the inevitable progress of ideas, in a world that reveals its best truths to the uncommonly patient minds.

Barbara Kingsolver
Truth, Adventure, Winning
"The Botany of Desire" by Barbara Kingsolver, www.nytimes.com. September 26, 2013.

Like kids who only ever get socks for Christmas, but still believe with all their hearts in Santa.

Barbara Kingsolver
Believe, Heart, Kids
Barbara Kingsolver (2008). “The Poisonwood Bible”, p.216, Faber & Faber

Be still, and the world is bound to turn herself inside out to entertain you. Everywhere you look, joyful noise is clanging to drown out quiet desperation.

Barbara Kingsolver
Patience, Looks, World
Barbara Kingsolver (2011). “High Tide in Tucson”, p.196, Faber & Faber

Eaters must understand, how we eat determines how the world is used.

Barbara Kingsolver
World, Used, Determine
"Seeing Red: Eating Locally and Debunking the Red-Blue Divide" by Barbara Kingsolver, www.motherjones.com. April 30, 2007.

Why is it that only girls stand on the sides of their feet? As if they're afraid to plant themselves?

Barbara Kingsolver
Girl, Feet, Feminist

Cooking is 80 percent confidence, a skill best acquired starting from when the apron strings wrap around you twice.

Barbara Kingsolver
Animal, Vegetables, Skills
Barbara Kingsolver (2010). “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: Our Year of Seasonal Eating”, p.282, Faber & Faber

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
Grief, Believe, Track

Our holiday food splurge was a small crate of tangerines, which we found ridiculously thrilling after an eight-month abstinence from citrus.... Lily hugged each one to her chest before undressing it as gently as a doll. Watching her do that as she sat cross-legged on the floor one morning in pink pajamas, with bliss lighting her cheeks, I thought: Lucky is the world, to receive this grateful child. Value is not made of money, but a tender balance of expectation and longing.

Barbara Kingsolver
Morning, Children, Food

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

Barbara Kingsolver
Animal, Vegetables, Miracle
Barbara Kingsolver (2010). “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: Our Year of Seasonal Eating”, p.284, Faber & Faber

A certain feeling comes from throwing your good life away, and it is one part rapture.

Barbara Kingsolver
Good Life, Feelings, Throwing
Barbara Kingsolver (2012). “Flight Behaviour”, p.5, Faber & Faber

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
Barbara Kingsolver (2008). “The Poisonwood Bible”, p.309, Faber & Faber

Memory is a complicated thing, a relative to truth, but not its twin.

Barbara Kingsolver
Inspirational, Memories, Criminal Mind
"Fictional character: Emily Prentiss". "Criminal Minds: Foundation" (TV Series), www.imdb.com. 2012.

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

Barbara Kingsolver
Government, Way, Treats

I had decided early on that if I couldn’t dress elegant, I’d dress memorable.

Barbara Kingsolver
Memorable, Dresses, Decided
Barbara Kingsolver (2009). “The Bean Trees: A Novel”, p.5, Harper Collins

Our childhood had passed over into history overnight. The transition was unnoticed by anyone but ourselves.

Barbara Kingsolver
Childhood, Transition, Unnoticed
Barbara Kingsolver (2008). “The Poisonwood Bible”, p.183, Faber & Faber

School is about two parts ABCs to fifty parts Where Do I Stand in the Great Pecking Order of Humankind.

Barbara Kingsolver
Education, School, Order
Barbara Kingsolver (2011). “High Tide in Tucson”, p.47, Faber & Faber

Of the two hundred bones in the human body, more than a quarter are in the foot. It is a more complicated instrument than an automobile transmission, and it is treated with far less consideration.

Barbara Kingsolver
Two, Feet, Body

You May Also Like: