"I could never work out whether we were to view religion as a life-insurance policy or a life sentence."
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Quote collection
Barbara Kingsolver quotes (page 8 of 23)
451 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"Watching Italians eat (especially men, I have to say) is a form of tourism the books don't tell you about. They close their eyes, raise their eyebrows into accent marks, and make sounds of acute appreciation. It's fairly sexy. Of course I don't know how these men behave at home, if they help with the cooking or are vain and boorish and mistreat their wives. I realized Mediterranean cultures have their issues. Fine, don't burst my bubble. I didn’t want to marry these guys, I just wanted to watch. (p. 247)"
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"a meaningless phrase repeated again and again begins to resemble truth."
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"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!"
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"The daily work - that goes on, it adds up."
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"it's the thing you fear most that walks beside you all the time."
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"The march of human progress seemed mainly a matter of getting over that initial shock of being here."
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"The important thing isn't the house. It's the ability to make it. You carry that in your brain and in your hands, wherever you go."
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"The changes we dread most may contain our salvation."
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"My worst nightmare is being stuck somewhere with nothing to read."
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"Be still, and the world is bound to turn herself inside out to entertain you. Everywhere you look, joyful noise is clanging to drown out quiet desperation."
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"It's a funny thing: people often ask how I discipline myself to write. I can't begin to understand the question. For me, the discipline is turning off the computer and leaving my desk to do something else."
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"Why is it that only girls stand on the sides of their feet? As if they're afraid to plant themselves?"
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"Growing food was the first activity that gave us enough prosperity to stay in one place, form complex social groups, tell our stories, and build our cities."
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"Eaters must understand, how we eat determines how the world is used."
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"I learned to write by reading the kind of books I wished I'd written."
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"How pointless life could be, what a foolish business of inventing things to love, just so you could dread losing them."
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"A certain feeling comes from throwing your good life away, and it is one part rapture."
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"As long as I kept moving, my grief streamed out behind me like a swimmer's long hair in water. I knew the weight was there but it didn't touch me. Only when I stopped did the slick, dark stuff of it come floating around my face, catching my arms and throat till I began to drown. So I just didn't stop."
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"the conspicuous consumption of limited resources has yet to be accepted widely as a spiritual error, or even bad manners"
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