Quotes from Sue Monk Kidd

I don't go in search of ideas; I try to let them find me.

I had begun to write novels because of a fierce, self-serving impulse in my own heart. I had not considered the potential in a book for felt communion, the bright largesse of intimately participating in the lives of other people.

I vividly remember the summer of 1964 with its voter registration drives, boiling racial tensions, and the erupting awareness of the cruelty of racism. I was never the same after that summer.

I can't explain exactly why it lives within me for so long and passionately. But race matters to me; racial equality matters to me, as does gender. There is something about these kinds of social injustices that go to the deep of me.

With pencil, you can always erase.

I think there must be a place inside of us where dreams go and wait their turn.

Every writer has their rituals. For me, it's morning walks along the beach. And then, in my study I have a huge painting of the Black Madonna hung over my desk, and quite a few pictures of Mary around me for inspiration.

Writing in the voice of an American slave felt like I was biting off something very large.

All I knew about bees when I started to write 'The Secret Life of Bees' was that they can live in a wall of your house, and that they make this incredible thing that I loved.

I actually grew up in a house in which bees lived in one of the walls, and they lived there 18 years, in fact, so it wasn't a fleeting thing.

When I wrote 'The Secret Life of Bees,' I was writing about civil rights.

You have to find a mother inside yourself. We all do. Even if we already have a mother, we still have to find this part of ourselves inside

It is the peculiar nature of the world to go on spinning no matter what sort of heartbreak is happening.

How did we ever get the idea that God would supply us on demand with quick fixes, that God is merely a rescuer and not a midwife?

Something deep in all of us yearns for God's beauty, and we can find it no matter where we are.

People in general would rather die than forgive. It's THAT hard. If God said in plain language. "I'm giving you a choice, forgive or die," a lot of people would go ahead and order their coffin.

The True Self is not our creation, but God's. It is the self we are in our depths. It is our capacity for divinity and transcendence.

Sometimes, in order to say yes to what matters most, I must say no to good things.

You are my everlasting home. Don't you ever be afraid. I am enough. We are enough.

Everybody needs a seashell in her bathroom to remind her the ocean is her home.

Journal became a sanctuary where I could pour out in honesty my pain and joy. It recorded my footsteps and helped me understand where I was standing, where I had been, and even where God pointed.

I believe in the goodness of imagination.

Into every life a little rain must fall.

I do read a poem almost every morning. Unless I'm really, really late, I have to get my poem in.