"War so conspicuously benefits rich men and kills the poor ones."
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Quote collection
Barbara Kingsolver quotes (page 18 of 23)
451 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"No matter what kind of night you're having, morning always wins."
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"No reporter worth his buttons will let the facts intrude on a good story."
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"You know reviewers, they are the wind in their own sails."
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"Illusions mistaken for truth are the pavement under our feet. They are what we call civilization."
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"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."
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"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?"
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"I've never gotten over high school, to the extent that I'm still a little surprised that my friends want to hang out with me."
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"Those first few weeks are an unearthly season. From the outside you remain so ordinary, no one can tell from looking that you have experienced an earthquake of the soul. You've been torn asunder, invested with an ancient, incomprehensible magic. It's the one thing that we never quite get over: that we contain our own future."
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"There's always a part of your nation's history that you haven't been told that... has a powerful impact on how you yourself may behave and may believe."
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"I struggle with confidence, every time. I’m never completely sure I can write another book. Maybe my scope is too grand, my questions too hard, surely readers won’t want to follow me here. A novel is like a cathedral, it knocks you down to size when you enter into it."
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"I think the most interesting parts of human experience might be the sparks that come from that sort of chipping flint of cultures rubbing against each other."
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"I love developing children as characters. Children rarely have important roles in literary fiction - they are usually defined as cute or precious, or they create a plot by being kidnapped or dying."
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"You always need that spark of imagination. Sometimes I'm midway through a book before it happens. However, I don't wait for the muse to descend, I sit down every day and I work when I'm not delivering lambs on the farm."
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"It takes some courage to write fiction about politically controversial topics. The dread is you'll be labeled a political writer."
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"A woman knows she can walk away from a pot to tend something else and the pot will go on boiling; if she couldn't this world would end at once."
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"Listen. To live is to be marked. To live is to change, to acquire the words of a story, and that is the only celebration we mortals really know. In perfect stillness, frankly, I've only found sorrow."
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"My morning begins with trying not to get up before the sun rises. But when I do, it's because my head is too full of words, and I just need to get to my desk and start dumping them into a file. I always wake with sentences pouring into my head."
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"But Anatole said suddenly, 'Don't expect God's protection in places beyond God's dominion. It will only make you feel punished. I'm warning you. When things go bad, you will blame yourself.' 'What are you telling me?' 'I am telling you what I'm telling you. Don't try to make life a mathematics problem with yourself in the center and everything coming out equal. When you are good, bad things can still happen. And if you are bad, you can still be lucky."
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"Be careful what you give children, for sooner or later you are sure to get it back."
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