"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."
"It is harrowing for me to try to teach 20-year-old students, who earnestly want to improve their writing. The best I can think to tell them is: Quit smoking, and observe posted speed limits. This will improve your odds of getting old enough to be wise."
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Source: How to be Hopeful. Commencement Address by Barbara Kingsolver, today.duke.edu. 2008.
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"If you want sweet dreams, you've got to live a sweet life."
"Few people know so clearly what they want. Most people can't even think what to hope for when they throw a penny in a fountain."
"There's a graveyard in northern France where all the dead boys from D-Day are buried. The white crosses reach from one horizon to the other. I remember looking it over and thinking it was a forest of graves. But the rows were like this, dizzying, diagonal, perfectly straight, so after all it wasn't a forest but an orchard of graves. Nothing to do with nature, unless you count human nature."
"Finally, cooking is good citizenship. It's the only way to get serious about putting locally raised foods into your diet, which keeps farmlands healthy and grocery money in the neighborhood."
"We came from Bethlehem, Georgia bearing Betty Crocker cake mixes into the jungle."