Barbara Kingsolver Quotes

It is true that I do not speak as well as I can think. But that is true of most people, as nearly as I can tell.

I lost a child, she said, meeting Lusa's eyes directly. I thought I wouldn't live through it. But you do. You learn to love the place somebody leaves behind for you.

Why does a person spend money on a stamp to spout bile at a stranger?

Now I need to be careful where I go next, because (for their own protection) there are laws in thirteen states that make it illegal to say anything bad about cows.

I never could figure out why men thought they could impress a woman by making the world out to be such a big dangerous deal. I mean, we've got to live in the exact same world every damn day of the wee...

Maybe life doesn't get any better than this, or any worse, and what we get is just what we're willing to find: small wonders, where they grow.

Truth is objective. A man should be respected for telling it, not threatened.

Mistakes wreck your life. But they make what you have. It's kind of all one. You know what Hester told me when we were working the sheep one time? She said it's no good to complain about your flock, b...

But being a stay-at-home mom was the loneliest kind of lonely, in which she was always and never by herself.

We seem to be built with a faulty gauge for moderation.

Now I'm starting to think he wasn't supposed to be my whole life, he was just this doorway to me.

Jazon and Mical. What kind of mother misspelled her kids’ names on purpose?

Many bright people are really in the dark about vegetable life. Biology teachers face kids in classrooms who may not even believe in the metamorphosis of bud to flower to fruit and seed, but rather, s...

You can curse the dead or pray for them, but don't expect them to do a thing for you. They're far too interested in watching us, to see what in heaven's name we will do next.

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

Will you explain to me why people encourage delusional behavior in children, and medicate it in adults? That’s so random. It’s like this whole shady setup.

It occurs to her that there is one thing about people you can never understand well enough: how entirely inside themselves they are.

The obstinate practicality of old women pierces and fortifies these families like the steel rods buried in walls of powdery concrete.

In Bobby Ogle's version of heaven everyone would wind up in one place, criminals and Muslims included.

Have you heard the songs they sing here in Kilanga? he asked. They’re very worshipful. It’s a grand way to begin a church service, singing a Congolese hymn to the rainfall on the seed yams. It’s quite...