Barbara Kingsolver Book Quotes & Sayings

Quit smoking in the hope of growing old. It takes a long time to write. People go to books for wisdom and older authors tend to have more of it. — Barbara Kingsolver

Most every book I bring into the world is like birthing a baby; it's a lot of effort! — Barbara Kingsolver

I struggle with confidence, every time. I'm never completely sure I can write another book. Maybe my scope is too grand, my questions too hard, surely readers won't want to follow me here. A novel is like a cathedral, it knocks you down to size when you enter into it. — Barbara Kingsolver

I should like to write my books only for the dear person who lies awake reading in bed until page last, then lets the open book fall gently on her face, to touch her smile or drink her tears. — Barbara Kingsolver

The first sentence of a book is a promise. — Barbara Kingsolver

A good title holds magic, some cognitive dissonance, a little grit between the teeth, but above all it is the jumping-off place into wonder. — Barbara Kingsolver

You want my advice? Put down your phone. Hug her from behind and kiss the back of her neck. Entwine your fingers with hers ... . You're welcome. — Steve Maraboli

I took my time exploring. I savored the first minutes in a new home. Carlos would always go straight to unpacking boxes, looking for the sheets and coffeepot and swearing that we were going to get better organized, while I stepped stealthily over the bare floors, peeking around corners and into alluring doors, which generally turned out to be the broom closet. But there was that thrilling sense that, like a new lover, the place held attributes I had yet to discover. My favorite book as a child was _The Secret Garden_. It's embarrassing to think I'd merrily relocated again and again, accompanying Carlos to the ends of the earth, because of the lure of a possible garret or secret closet. But it might be true. — Barbara Kingsolver

The point is, Harry, if I'm not to find you abhorrent, there will have to be more reciprocity all round. Particularly from your side. — Hanif Kureishi

I was at the front for thirteen months, and by the end of that time the sharpest perceptions had become dulled, the greatest words mean. — Ernst Toller

How strange to read of a place in a book, and then stand on it, listen to the birds sing, and spit on the cobbles if you want. — Barbara Kingsolver

Pay attention to your passions. They are the key to starting and finishing the book you are meant to write. I don't believe in talent. I believe in passion. — Barbara Kingsolver

I attempted briefly to consecrate myself in the public library, believing every crack in my soul could be chinked with a book. — Barbara Kingsolver

You make adjustments according to the specifics of the character.It's something I feel like a lot of my comedic heroes have always done. It's not even necessarily vulnerability, always, but it's an earnestness, a genuine desire to actually do the right thing, but then still make really misguided, stupid decisions along the way. — Ed Helms

You just read your books and go on a hundred miles away, You ignore me. — Barbara Kingsolver

The way that the background fields generates mass is rather like the way in which when light passes through a transparent medium like glass or water, it gets slowed down. It no longer travels with the fundamental velocity of light c. And that's the way to think of the generation of mass. — Peter Higgs

I often went to bed without supper cause I hated my mother's cooking. So, to go to bed without supper was not a torture to me. If she was gonna hurt me, she'd make me eat. — Maurice Sendak

I read in a book that they cut off the workers' hands if they hadn't collected enough rubber by the end of the day. The Belgian foremen would bring baskets full of brown hands back to the boss, piled up like a mess of fish. Could this be true of civilized white Christians? In — Barbara Kingsolver

Why do you suppose the poets talk about hearts?' he asked me suddenly. 'When they discuss emotional damage? The tissue of hearts is tough as a shoe. Did you ever sew up a heart?'
I shook my head. 'No, but I've watched. I know what you mean.' The walls of a heart are thick and strong, and the surgeons use heavy needles. It takes a good bit of strength, but it pulls together neatly. As much as anything it's like binding a book.
The seat of human emotion should be the liver,' Doc Homer said. 'That would be an appropriate metaphor: we don't hold love in our hearts, we hold it in our livers.'
I understood exactly. Once in ER I saw a woman who'd been stabbed everywhere, most severely in the liver. It's an organ with the consistency of layer upon layer of wet Kleenex. Every attempt at repair just opens new holes that tear and bleed. You try to close the wound with fresh wounds, and you try and you try and you don't give up until there's nothing left. — Barbara Kingsolver

The last thing that should happen is funding cut for education; it should be increased. We need to put more money towards education, and anything else is abusive. — Flea

I've burned words and buried them, I thought, but I haven't tried the water yet. — Ally Condie

A novel can educate to some extent, but first a novel has to entertain. That's the contract with the reader: you give me ten hours and I'll give you a reason to turn every page. I have a commitment to accessibility. I believe in plot. I want an English professor to understand the symbolism while at the same time I want the people I grew up with - who may not often read anything but the Sears catalog - to read my books. — Barbara Kingsolver

Some choices you make with your heart some with your head but when in doubt choose head over heart ... it will keep you alive.
-merry gentry — Laurell K. Hamilton

If ... " Decebel had to clear his throat before he could continue. "If she dies, you will have to kill me."
Vasile nodded once, then added, "She will not die."
Decebel closed his eyes. "How can you be so sure?"
Vasile chuckled lightly. "No one as fierce as Jennifer Adams will go quietly into the night. — Quinn Loftis

The real thing we tried to look at is what happens to a society when the state is absent. At that point, the state had really withdrawn from Lagos; the city was left to its own devices, both in terms of money and services. That, by definition, created an unbelievable proliferation of independent agency: each citizen needed to take, in any day, maybe 400 or 500 independent decisions on how to survive that extremely complex system. — Rem Koolhaas

Write a nonfiction book, and be prepared for the legion of readers who are going to doubt your fact. But write a novel, and get ready for the world to assume every word is true. — Barbara Kingsolver

What keeps me awake at the wheel is the thrill of trying something completely new with each book. I'm not a risk-taker in life, generally speaking, but as a writer I definitely choose the fast car, the impossible rock face, the free fall. — Barbara Kingsolver

The voters in my district, and around the country, have demanded that Congress get a hold on the influx of illegal immigrants and tighten the security around our borders. — John Linder

A little tomato who knows her onions can go out with an old potato and come home with a lot of lettuce and a couple of carats. — Herbert V. Prochnow

Audiences - they like colour, you know. I can go out there wearing a red suit, man, and they'll say I'm out of sight ... I think they should be educated; you should always drop something on an audience ... When you get in front of an audience, you should try to give 'em something. After all, they're there looking at you like this. You can't go out and give 'em nothing. — Miles Davis

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. — Barbara Kingsolver

User-generated content is not done by professionals. The best user-generated content eventually becomes those people gravitated in the professional world. — Michael Eisner