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I don't bring expectations to any of my books. I don't tell people what to do. I want to invite them in.

Barbara Kingsolver

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Barbara Kingsolver
Age: 69
Born: 1955
Born: April 8
Essayist
Novelist
Poet
Writer
Annapolis
Maryland
Book
People
Invite
Invites
Expectations
Bring
Books
Tell

More quotes by Barbara Kingsolver

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I've about decided that's the main thing that separates happy people from the other people: the feeling that you're a practical item, with a use, like a sweater or a socket wrench.
Barbara Kingsolver
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A breeze shook rain out of new leaves onto their hair, but in their pursuit of eternity they never noticed the chill.
Barbara Kingsolver
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I'm of a fearsome mind to throw my arms around every living librarian who crosses my path, on behalf of the souls they never knew they saved.
Barbara Kingsolver
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But kids don't stay with you if you do it right. It's the one job where, the better you are, the more surely you won't be needed in the long run.
Barbara Kingsolver
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Food is the rare moral arena in which the ethical choice is generally the one more likely to make you groan with pleasure.
Barbara Kingsolver
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I grew up aware of all the people I depended on and who depended on me.
Barbara Kingsolver
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God doesn’t need to punish us. He just grants us a long enough life to punish ourselves.
Barbara Kingsolver
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The gods you do not pay are the ones that can curse you best.
Barbara Kingsolver
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People read books to escape the uncertainties of life.
Barbara Kingsolver
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... Urban friends ask me how I can stand living here, 'so far from everything?' When I hear this question over the phone, I'm usually looking out the window at a forest, a running creek, and a vegetable garden, thinking: Define everything.
Barbara Kingsolver
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Children can be your heartache. But that doesn't matter, you have to go on and have them . . . it works out.
Barbara Kingsolver
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...nothing momentous comes in this world unless it comes on the shoulders of kindness.
Barbara Kingsolver
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There is no point treating a depressed person as though she were just feeling sad, saying, 'There now, hang on, you'll get over it.' Sadness is more or less like a head cold- with patience, it passes. Depression is like cancer.
Barbara Kingsolver
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I don't look like who I am.
Barbara Kingsolver
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I’ve seen how you can’t learn anything when you’re trying to look like the smartest person in the room.
Barbara Kingsolver
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Most of the girls my age, or even younger, have babies. They appear way too young to be married, till you look in their eyes. Then you'll see it. Their eyes look happy and sad at the same time, but unexcited by anything, shifting easily off to the side as if they've already seen most of what there is. Married eyes.
Barbara Kingsolver
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He warned Mother not to flout God's Will by expecting too much of us. Sending a girl to college is like pouring water in your shoes,' he still loves to say, as often as possible. 'It's hard to say which is worse, seeing it run out and waste the water, or seeing it hold in and wreck the shoes.
Barbara Kingsolver
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Humans can be fairly ridiculous animals.
Barbara Kingsolver
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Nonfiction requires enormous discipline. You construct the terms of your story, and then you stick to them.
Barbara Kingsolver
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Our house is like an empty cigarette packet, lying around reminding you what's not in it.
Barbara Kingsolver