Quotes from Barbara Kingsolver

The spirits have been good enough to let us live here and use the utilities, and we're saying: We know how nice you're being. We appreciate the rain, we appreciate the sun, we appreciate the deer we took. Sorry if we messed up anything. You've gone to a lot of trouble, and we'll try to be good guests.

That is so. Science directs us to study our maker's creation, but his thoughts on its purpose are only his to reveal.

You must understand the language of your enemy.

To people who think of themselves as God's houseguests, American enterprise must seem arrogant beyond belief. Or stupid. A nation of amnesiacs, proceeding as if there were no other day but today. Assuming the land could also forget what had been done to it.

The trouble with learning the backgrounds is that you end up wanting to deck somebody

she is practiced in the art of creating a still life and taking up residence inside it.

Guilty or innocent, they have everything to lose. They are what there is to lose. A wife is the earth itself, changing hands, bearing scars.

You are afraid you might forget, but you never will. You will forgive and remember. Think of the vine that curls from the small square plot that was once my heart. That is the only marker you need. Move on. Walk forward into the light.

The substance of grief is not imaginary. It's as real as rope or the absence of air, and like both those things it can kill.

the dread of Darwin is rising to hysteria, even among his learned colleagues. It was not long ago people blamed Darwin's Origin for encouraging the abolitionists and the war. But now even abolitionists and transcendentalists have turned against him." "How are people so irrational?" he asked, but he knew. Even the abolitionists had no wish to be placed inside creation, subject to its laws. They wished to rule over it from the head of God's table.

The shock settled on Willa like a personal failure, as if she'd invited the disaster by failing to see it coming.

Like a mule team in harness.

Estevan took off his shirt and lay back against the front of the boat, his hands clasped behind his head, exposing his smooth Mayan chest to the sun. And to me. How could he possibly have done this, if he had any idea how I felt? I knew that Estevan had walked a long, hard road beyond innocence, but still he sometimes did the most simple, innocent, heartbreaking things.

Too much adrenaline will age you before your time. I've heard that said. What I know for sure is, it will push you too fast through your day.

Age-old heartbreak of this place, your great successes fly away, your failures stick around.

Romeo Blevins lawyered up and gaslighted the jury like he'd gaslighted Mariah and every other soul ever to know him. Making himself out the good Samaritan, Mariah the crazy jealous bitch.

You can't let your heart go bad like that, like sour milk. There's always the chance you'll want to use it later.

There was room in Adah for nought but pure love and pure hate. Such a life is satisfying and deeply uncomplicated.

Presumptions of a lifetime are perilous things to overturn. Presumptions of many lifetimes, in this case." Of all lifetimes ever lived, in this case. Every person in history must have placed himself at the head of a Creator's table. To see that table overturned, cutlery and china dashed to the floor, one's very place lost, was to witness the sky falling. Thatcher hadn't fully considered Darwin in such threatening light.

800 million people are chronically underfed (6 will die of hunger-related causes while you read this article), it's because they lack money and opportunity, not because food is unavailable in their countries.

But don't you want lots of money? Beene, I spent many years working for the Belgians in the rubber plantation at Coquilhatville, and I saw rich men there. They were always unhappy and had very few children.

She cursed aloud and sat up. Damned thing, self-consciousness, like a pitiful stray dog tagging you down the road—so hard to shake off. So easy to get back. No man had ever spoken to her

Well, my stars, the thing was like the Bible—look hard enough in its pages, and you'll find what you seek. Love your neighbor, or slay him with the jawbone of an ass.

I could not remotely believe any Shepherd was leading me through this dreadful valley, but the familiar words stuffed my mouth like cotton, and it was some relief to know, at least, that one sentence would follow upon another. It was my only way of knowing what to do.