Barbara Kingsolver Quotes

Quotes about:

• Don't try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say.

  Barbara Kingsolver

  Writing, Creativity, People

  52 Copy quote

• A dog can't think that much about what he's doing, he just does what feels right.

  Barbara Kingsolver

  Dog, Thinking, Doe

  6 Copy quote

• 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.

  Barbara Kingsolver

  Wonder, Grows, Willing

  Barbara Kingsolver (2011). “Small Wonder”, p.319, Faber & Faber

  50 Copy quote

• Hope is a renewable option:
  If you run out of it at the end of the day, you get to start over in the morning.

  Barbara Kingsolver

  Inspiring, Running, Dream

  87 Copy quote

• The very least you can do in your life is to figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof.

  Barbara Kingsolver

  Dream, Hope, Life Lesson

  "Animal Dreams". Book by Barbara Kingsolver, 1990.

  48 Copy quote

• In my own worst seasons I've come back from the colorless world of despair by forcing myself to look hard, for a long time, at a single glorious thing: a flame of red geranium outside my bedroom window. And then another: my daughter in a yellow dress. And another: the perfect outline of a full, dark sphere behind the crescent moon. Until I learned to be in love with my life again. Like a stroke victim retraining new parts of the brain to grasp lost skills, I have taught myself joy, over and over again(15).

  Barbara Kingsolver

  Life, Daughter, Dark

  45 Copy quote

• In a world as wrong as this one, all we can do is make things as right as we can.

  Barbara Kingsolver

  Life, World, Can Do

  Barbara KingSolver (1988). “The Bean Trees: A Novel”, Harpercollins

  19 Copy quote

• One of the very first things I figured out about life...is that it's better to be a hopeful person than a cynical, grumpy one, because you have to live in the same world either way, and if you're hopeful, you have more fun.

  Barbara Kingsolver

  Positive, Fun, Hopeful

  15 Copy quote

• If you're standing in the manure pile, it's somebody's job to mention the stink.

  Barbara Kingsolver

  Jobs, Stink, Standing

  Barbara Kingsolver (2009). “The Lacuna”, p.447, Faber & Faber

  6 Copy quote

• Every one of us is called upon, perhaps many times, to start a new life. A frightening diagnosis, a marriage, a move, loss of a job...And onward full-tilt we go, pitched and wrecked and absurdly resolute, driven in spite of everything to make good on a new shore. To be hopeful, to embrace one possibility after another--that is surely the basic instinct...Crying out: High tide! Time to move out into the glorious debris. Time to take this life for what it is.

  Barbara Kingsolver

  Jobs, Moving, Loss

  50 Copy quote

• The most important thing about a person is always the thing you don't know.

  Barbara Kingsolver

  Important, Persons, Knows

  Barbara Kingsolver (2009). “The Lacuna”, p.286, Faber & Faber

  22 Copy quote

• The changes we dread most may contain our salvation.

  Barbara Kingsolver

  Change, May, Salvation

  Barbara Kingsolver (2011). “Small Wonder”, p.13, Faber & Faber

  9 Copy quote

• Anybody can get worked up, if they have the intention. It's peacefulness that is hard to come by on purpose.

  Barbara Kingsolver

  Purpose, Intention, Peacefulness

  Barbara Kingsolver (2011). “Pigs in Heaven”, p.200, Faber & Faber

  4 Copy quote

• You can’t replace people you love with other people…But you can trust that you’re not going to run out of people to love.

  Barbara Kingsolver

  Running, People

  10 Copy quote

• Thanks for this day, for all birds safe in their nests, for whatever this is, for life.

  Barbara Kingsolver

  Bird, Safe, Nests

  Barbara Kingsolver (2008). “Prodigal Summer”, p.215, Faber & Faber

  30 Copy quote

• Empathy is really the opposite of spiritual meanness. It's the capacity to understand that every war is both won and lost. And that someone else's pain is as meaningful as your own.

  Barbara Kingsolver

  Meaningful, Spiritual, Pain

  12 Copy quote

• Recall that whatever lofty things you might accomplish today, you will do them only because you first ate something that grew out of the dirt.

  Barbara Kingsolver

  Might, Today, Dirt

  26 Copy quote

• What keeps you going isn't some fine destination but just the road you're on, and the fact that you know how to drive. You keep your eyes open, you see this damned-to-hell world you got born into, and you ask yourself, 'What life can I live that will let me breathe in & out and love somebody or something and not run off screaming into the woods?

  Barbara Kingsolver

  Running, Eye, World

  13 Copy quote

• You don't think you'll live past it and you don't really. The person you were is gone. But the half of you that's still alive wakes up one day and takes over again.

  Barbara Kingsolver

  Grief, Past, Thinking

  22 Copy quote

• Friends, there is nothing like your own family to make you appreciate strangers!

  Barbara Kingsolver

  Appreciate, Stranger

  Barbara Kingsolver (2008). “The Poisonwood Bible”, p.399, Faber & Faber

  19 Copy quote

• I'm of a fearsome mind to throw my arms around every living librarian who crosses my path, on behalf of the souls they never knew they saved.

  Barbara Kingsolver

  Soul, Mind, Library

  Barbara Kingsolver (2011). “High Tide in Tucson”, p.39, Faber & Faber

  28 Copy quote

• A miscarriage is a natural and common event. All told, probably more women have lost a child from this world than haven't. Most don't mention it, and they go on from day to day as if it hadn't happened, so people imagine a woman in this situation never really knew or loved what she had. But ask her sometime: how old would your child be now? And she'll know.

  Barbara Kingsolver

  Love, Children, Miscarriage

  "Animal Dreams". Book by Barbara Kingsolver, September 1990.

  40 Copy quote

• Patriotism threatens free speech with death. It is infuriated by thoughtful hesitation, constructive criticism of our leaders and pleas for peace. It despises people of foreign birth. It has specifically blamed homosexuals, feminists and the American Civil Liberties Union. In other words, the American flag stands for intimidation, censorship, violence, bigotry, sexism, homophobia and shoving the Constitution through a paper shredder. Whom are we calling terrorists here?

  Barbara Kingsolver

  Thoughtful, People, Feminist

  "And our flag was still there" by Barbara Kingsolver, www.sfgate.com. September 25, 2001.

  38 Copy quote

• Honk if you love Jesus, text while driving if you want to meet up.

  Barbara Kingsolver

  Jesus, Want, Driving

  Barbara Kingsolver (2012). “Flight Behaviour”, p.234, Faber & Faber

  17 Copy quote

• The truth needs so little rehearsal.

  Barbara Kingsolver

  Truth, Honesty, Needs

  23 Copy quote

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