937 Quotes by Barbara Kingsolver

A writer’s occupational hazard: I think of eavesdropping as minding my business.

You can’t just sashay into the jungle aiming to change it all over to the Christian style, without expecting the jungle to change you right back.

Moths must fly to his flame and perish gladly.

The first steps toward stewardship are awareness, appreciation, and the selfish desire to have the things around for our kids to see. Presumably the unselfish motives will follow as we wise up.

I’m widest awake as a writer doing something new, engaged in a process I’m not sure I can finish, generating at the edge of my powers. Some people bungee jump; I write.

The substance of grief is not imaginary. It’s as real as rope or the absence of air, and like both those things, it can kill.

Don’t count on it. There’s a lot of white folks out there hanging on to their God-given right to look down on some other class of people.

Sometimes I still have American dreams. I mean literally. I see microwave ovens and exercise machines and grocery store shelves with 30 brands of shampoo, and I look at these things oddly, in my dream. I stand and think, “What is all this for? What is the hunger that drives this need?” I think it’s fear. Codi, I hope you won’t be hurt by this, but I don’t think I’ll ever be going back. I don’t think I can.

A woman without a man – a condition of ‘manlessness’ – is defined as alone. But a single mother is less alone than the average housewife.