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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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Barbara Kingsolver
Age: 69
Born: 1955
Born: April 8
Essayist
Novelist
Poet
Writer
Annapolis
Maryland
Construct
Term
Constructs
Story
Stick
Stories
Sticks
Requires
Enormous
Discipline
Nonfiction
Terms

More quotes by Barbara Kingsolver

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The march of human progress seemed mainly a matter of getting over that initial shock of being here.
Barbara Kingsolver
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There is something in us that loves certain disasters and the fever of this moment and surrendering to that.
Barbara Kingsolver
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Sleeping alone seemed unnatural to me, and pitiful, something done in hospitals or when you're contagious.
Barbara Kingsolver
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there are people who read my work and accuse me of being political! As far as I'm concerned that's like accusing a dog of having a bark!
Barbara Kingsolver
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I think the most interesting parts of human experience might be the sparks that come from that sort of chipping flint of cultures rubbing against each other.
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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He had senile dementia and liked to go outside naked, but he could still do two things perfectly: win at checkers and write out prescriptions.
Barbara Kingsolver
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I can think of no honorable answer. Why must some of us deliberate between brands of toothpaste, while others deliberate between damp dirt and bone dust to quiet the fire of an empty stomach lining? There is nothing about the United States I can really explain to this child of another world.
Barbara Kingsolver
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In fact, one of the things that I really love about literary fiction is that it's one of the few kinds of writing that doesn't tell us what to think or what to buy or what to wear. We're surrounded by advertising.
Barbara Kingsolver
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They all attended Hester's church, which Dellarobia viewed as a complicated pyramid scheme of moral debt and credit resting ultimately on the shoulders of the Lord, but rife with middle managers.
Barbara Kingsolver
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Oh, that river of wishes, the slippery crocodile dream of it, how it might have carried my body down through all the glittering sand bars to the sea.
Barbara Kingsolver
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Small change, small wonders - these are the currency of my endurance and ultimately of my life.
Barbara Kingsolver
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I write every moment that is humanly possible. I write every day and every night. The only discipline I lack is the discipline is to quit.
Barbara Kingsolver
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Beginning a novel is always hard. It feels like going nowhere. I always have to write at least 100 pages that go into the trashcan before it finally begins to work. It's discouraging, but necessary to write those pages. I try to consider them pages -100 to zero of the novel.
Barbara Kingsolver
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Libraries are the one American institution you shouldn't rip off.
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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People love to read about sins and errors, but not their own.
Barbara Kingsolver
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If I had to give up my life for anything, it would have to have the resilience of hope, the elation of new literacy, the brilliant life of a field of flowers, the elementary kindness of bread. Nothing short of that. It would have to be something as sure as love.
Barbara Kingsolver
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Prayer had always struck me as more or less a glorified attempt at a business transaction.
Barbara Kingsolver
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Thanks for this day, for all birds safe in their nests, for whatever this is, for life.
Barbara Kingsolver