Barbara Kingsolver Quotes
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It's surprising how much memory is built around things unnoticed at the time.
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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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The first sentence of a book is a promise.
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Every time I step onto an airplane, I turn to the right and take a good, hard stare into the maw of the engine. I don't know what I'm looking for. I just do it.
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Terms like that, 'Humane Society,' are devised with people like me in mind, who don't care to dwell on what happens to the innocent.
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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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It seems very safe to me to be surrounded by green growing things and water.
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I do my best work if I think about what it is I have to offer.
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I'm not pretending to be ingenuous; I know what I'm doing.
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I live in a rural part of Virginia surrounded by farms and farmers.
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I don't understand how any good art could fail to be political.
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I grew up aware of all the people I depended on and who depended on me.
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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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We're animals. We're born like every other mammal and we live our whole lives around disguised animal thoughts.
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At some point in my life I'd honestly hoped love would rescue me from the cold, drafty castle I lived in. But at another point, much earlier I think, I'd quietly begun to hope for nothing at all in the way of love, so as not to be disappointed. It works. It gets to be a habit.
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I used to think religion was just more of the same thing. Dump responsibility on the big guy. Now I see an importance in that. It's a relief to accept that not everything is under your control.
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I was trained in classical piano, but it kind of dawned on me that classical pianists compete for six job openings a year, and the rest of us get to play 'Blue Moon' in a hotel lobby.
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A flock is nothing but the put-together of all your past choices.
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The older I get, the more I appreciate my rural childhood. I spent a lot of time outdoors, unsupervised, which is a blessing.
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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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I know I'm a rare person, a trained scientist who writes fiction, because so few contemporary novelists engage with science.
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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.
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Libraries are the one American institution you shouldn't rip off.
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When people are frightened about going hungry and paying their mortgages, a scarcity model begins to prevail; they fear someone else will get their piece of the pie.