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Barbara Kingsolver Quotes - Page 6

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The happiest people are the ones with the most community.

The happiest people are the ones with the most community.

Barbara Kingsolver
People, Community
"5 Tips for Your Commencement 2.0" by Mark Chimsky, www.huffingtonpost.com. November 14, 2012.

If you never stepped on anybody's toes, you never been for a walk.

Barbara Kingsolver
Toes, Tact, Walks
Barbara Kingsolver (2011). “High Tide in Tucson”, p.38, Faber & Faber

The important thing isn't the house. It's the ability to make it. You carry that in your brain and in your hands, wherever you go.

Barbara Kingsolver
Hands, House, Brain

Wherever I am, let me never forget to distinguish want from need

Barbara Kingsolver
Needs, Charity, Want
Barbara Kingsolver (2011). “High Tide in Tucson”, p.15, Faber & Faber

Oh, mercy. If it catches you in the wrong frame of mind, the King James Bible can make you want to drink poison in no uncertain terms.

Barbara Kingsolver
Kings, Mind, Poison
Barbara Kingsolver (2008). “The Poisonwood Bible”, p.163, Faber & Faber

Growing food was the first activity that gave us enough prosperity to stay in one place, form complex social groups, tell our stories, and build our cities.

Barbara Kingsolver
Cities, Firsts, Groups
Barbara Kingsolver (2010). “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: Our Year of Seasonal Eating”, p.178, Faber & Faber

I learned to write by reading the kind of books I wished I'd written.

Barbara Kingsolver
Book, Reading, Writing

Libraries are the one American institution you shouldn't rip off.

Barbara Kingsolver
Rip, Book, Library
Barbara Kingsolver (2009). “Animal Dreams: A Novel”, p.34, Harper Collins

Morning always comes.

Barbara Kingsolver
Morning

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
Thinking, People, Want
Barbara Kingsolver (2009). “Animal Dreams: A Novel”, p.36, Harper Collins

I don't know what rituals my kids will carry into adulthood, whether they'll grow up attached to homemade pizza on Friday nights, or the scent of peppers roasting over a fire, or what. I do know that flavors work their own ways under the skin, into the heart of longing. Where my kids are concerned I find myself hoping for the simplest things: that if someday they crave orchards where their kids can climb into the branches and steal apples, the world will have trees enough with arms to receive them.

Barbara Kingsolver
Friday, Growing Up, Kids

I'm not pretending to be ingenuous; I know what I'm doing.

Barbara Kingsolver
Pretending, Knows
"A life in writing" by Maya Jaggi, www.theguardian.com. June 11, 2010.

If we can't, as artists, improve on real life, we should put down our pencils and go bake bread.

Barbara Kingsolver
Art, Real, Bread

Everyone should get dirt on his hands each day. Doctors, intellectuals. Politicians, most of all. How can we presume to uplift the life of the working man, if we don't respect his work?

Barbara Kingsolver
Uplifting, Men, Doctors
Barbara Kingsolver (2009). “The Lacuna”, p.291, Faber & Faber

I learned to produce whether I wanted to or not. It would be easy to say oh, I have writer's block, oh, I have to wait for my muse. I don't. Chain that muse to your desk and get the job done.

Barbara Kingsolver
Jobs, Block, Waiting

I considered her my ally, because, like me, she was imperfect.

Barbara Kingsolver
Allies, Imperfect, Like Me
Barbara Kingsolver (2008). “The Poisonwood Bible”, p.66, Faber & Faber

Misunderstanding is my cornerstone. It's everyone's, come to think of it. Illusions mistaken for truth are the pavement under our feet.

Barbara Kingsolver
Thinking, Feet, Pavement
Barbara Kingsolver (2008). “The Poisonwood Bible”, p.396, Faber & Faber

Root out all the "to be" verbs in your prose and bludgeon them until dead. No "It was" or "they are" or "I am." Don't let it be, make it happen.

Barbara Kingsolver
Roots, Verbs, Prose
Interview with Crystal Wilkinson, appalachianheritage.net. November 20, 2014.

Every betrayal contains a perfect moment, a coin stamped heads or tails with salvation on the other side.

Barbara Kingsolver
Betrayal, Heads Or Tails, Perfect
Barbara Kingsolver (2008). “The Poisonwood Bible”, p.311, Faber & Faber

Wars and elections are both too big and too small to matter in the long run. The daily work - that goes on, it adds up.

Barbara Kingsolver
Funny, Life, Running

Now, see, that's why you want Internet friends. You can find people just exactly like you. Screw your neighbors and your family, too messy...the trouble is, once you filter out everybody that doesn't agree with you, all that's left is maybe this one retired surfer guy living in Idaho.

Barbara Kingsolver
Idaho, People, Guy

There's always more to a story than a body can see from the fenceline.

Barbara Kingsolver
Stories, Body

They all attended Hester's church, which Dellarobia viewed as a complicated pyramid scheme of moral debt and credit resting ultimately on the shoulders of the Lord, but rife with middle managers.

Barbara Kingsolver
Pyramids, Pyramid Schemes, Church
Barbara Kingsolver (2012). “Flight Behaviour”, p.21, Faber & Faber

Many of us who aren't farmers or gardeners still have some element of farm nostalgia in our family past, real or imagined: a secret longing for some connection to a life where a rooster crows in the yard.

Barbara Kingsolver
Real, Past, Secret
Barbara Kingsolver (2010). “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: Our Year of Seasonal Eating”, p.179, Faber & Faber

He was my father. I own half his genes, and all of his history. Believe this: the mistakes are part of the story. I am born of a man who believed he could tell nothing but the truth, while he set down for all time the Poisonwood Bible.

Barbara Kingsolver
Father, Mistake, Believe
Barbara Kingsolver (2008). “The Poisonwood Bible”, p.441, Faber & Faber

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