Quotes from Barbara Kingsolver

We're only what we are: a woman cycling with the moon, and a tribe of men trying to have sex with the sky.

since I myself find in myself no pity to myself.

All that you have brought upon us and all that you have done to us, You have done in justice… Deliver us in your wonderful way. SONG OF THE THREE CHILDREN, 7–19 THE APOCRYPHA

thought of the way a tree will keep on growing after a fence is wired around its trunk. The unbelievable force of that expansion. And I let her go.

It was hard to see where all this could possibly go when it melted.

A flower is a plant's way of making love.

It's frightening when things you love appear suddenly changed from what you have always known.

What a writer can do, what a fiction writer or a poet or an essay writer can do is re-engage people with their own humanity.

It takes some courage to write fiction about politically controversial topics. The dread is you'll be labeled a political writer.

I can count all the ways in which being a mother has enriched my understanding of the world, of character, my sense of the future and my attachment to it. I can't imagine what kind of writer I'd be if I didn't have my kids.

I know I'm a rare person, a trained scientist who writes fiction, because so few contemporary novelists engage with science.

Everything you're sure is right can be wrong in another place.

You can be as earnest and ridiculous as you need to be, if you don't attempt it in isolation. The ridiculously earnest are known to travel in groups. And they are known to change the world.

Fiction is a sort of inter-human magic, allowing you to travel into a scene and feel it tingle on your skin.

From the fallen tree everybody makes firewood.

It's a great freedom to give up on love, and get on with everything else.

Most of my books have been about the complex ways an individual depends on community.

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.

Tall and straight I may appear, but I will always be Ada inside. A crooked little person trying to tell the truth. The power is in the balance: we are our injuries, as much as we are our successes

After 'The Poisonwood Bible' was published, several people believed that my parents were missionaries, which could not be further from the truth.

Lies are infinite in number, and the truth so small and singular.

When I sit down to write, I consider myself an artist.

Don't try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say.

Honk if you love Jesus, text while driving if you want to meet up.