"Humans can be fairly ridiculous animals."
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Quote collection
Barbara Kingsolver quotes (page 11 of 23)
451 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"When we traded homemaking for careers, we were implicitly promised economic independence and worldly influence. But a devil of a bargain it has turned out to be in terms of daily life. We gave up the aroma of warm bread rising, the measured pace of nurturing routines, the creative task of molding our families' tastes and zest for life; we received in exchange the minivan and the Lunchable."
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"Vengeance does not subtract any numbers from the equation of murder; it only adds them."
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"There are days when I am envious of my hens: when I hunger for a purpose as perfect and sure as a single daily egg."
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"Once you start cooking, one thing leads to another. A new recipe is as exciting as a blind date. A new ingredient, heaven help me, is an intoxicating affair."
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"It's a great freedom to give up on love, and get on with everything else."
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"you can't really know the person standing before you, because always there is some missing piece"
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"In exchange for his first taste of powdered milk, Pascal showed me a tree we could climb to find a bird's nest. After we handled and examined the pink-skinned baby birds, he popped one of them into his mouth like a jujube. It seemed to please him a lot. He offered a baby bird to me, pantomiming that I should eat it. I understood perfectly well what he meant, but I refused. He did not seem disappointed to have to eat the whole brood himself."
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"Scientific illiteracy in our populations is leaving too many of us unprepared to discuss or understand much of the damage we are wreaking on our atmosphere, our habitat, and even the food that enters our mouths."
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"it takes your sleeping self years to catch up to where you really are. ... when you go on a trip, in your dreams you will still be home. Then after you've come home you'll dream of where you were. It's a kind of jet lag of the consciousness."
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"Food culture in the United States has long been cast as the property of a privileged class. It is nothing of the kind. Culture is the property of a species."
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"Corn syrup and added fats have been outed as major ingredients in fast food, but they hide out in packaged foods too, even presumed-innocent ones like crackers."
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"...whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. And peace will be with you."
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"Children model the behavior of adults, on whatever scale is available to them. Ours are growing up in a nation whose most important, influential men - from presidents to the coolest film characters - solve problems by killing people. ... We have taught our children in a thousand ways, sometimes with flag-waving and sometimes with a laugh track, that the bad guy deserves to die."
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"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."
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"Sleeping alone seemed unnatural to me, and pitiful, something done in hospitals or when you're contagious."
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"Given my own circumstances, I find that anything can turn out to belong nearly anywhere."
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"Our childhood had passed over into history overnight. The transition was unnoticed by anyone but ourselves."
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"But nothing on this earth is guaranteed, when you get right down to it, you know ? I've been thinking about that. About how your kids aren't really YOURS, they're just these people that you try to keep an eye on, and hope you'll all grow up someday to like each other and still be in one piece. What I mean is, everything you get is really just on loan. Does that make sense?" Sure,"I said. "Like library books. Sooner or later they've all got to go back into the nightdrop."
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"We agreed with him in principal - we were little scientists, born and bred. But children robbed of love will dwell on magic."
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