Quote

If you ask me, when something extraordinary shows up in your life in the middle of the night, you give it a name and make it the best home you can.

Barbara Kingsolver

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Barbara Kingsolver
Age: 69
Born: 1955
Born: April 8
Essayist
Novelist
Poet
Writer
Annapolis
Maryland
Life
Night
Shows
Give
Home
Extraordinary
Best
Name
Giving
Middle
Something
Names
Make
Asks

More quotes by Barbara Kingsolver

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Fiction and essays can create empathy for the theoretical stranger.
Barbara Kingsolver
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My way of finding a place in this world is to write one.
Barbara Kingsolver
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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.
Barbara Kingsolver
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Science doesn't tell us what we should do. It only tells us what is.
Barbara Kingsolver
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Few people know so clearly what they want. Most people can't even think what to hope for when they throw a penny in a fountain.
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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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
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For scientists, reality is not optional.
Barbara Kingsolver
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No matter what kind of night you're having, morning always wins.
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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For Lou Ann, life itself was a life-threatening enterprise.
Barbara Kingsolver
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You see mother, you had no life of your own. They have no idea. One has only a life of one's own.
Barbara Kingsolver
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I used to think religion was just more of the same thing. Dump responsibility on the big guy. Now I see an importance in that. It's a relief to accept that not everything is under your control.
Barbara Kingsolver
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Humans can be fairly ridiculous animals.
Barbara Kingsolver
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Let me claim that Africa and I kept company for a while and then parted ways as if we were both party to relations with a failed outcome. Or say I was afflicted with Africa like a bout of a rare disease from which I have not managed a full recovery.
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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God, why does a mortal man have children? It is senseless to love anything this much.
Barbara Kingsolver
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The friend who holds your hand and says the wrong thing is made of dearer stuff than the one who stays away.
Barbara Kingsolver
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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.
Barbara Kingsolver
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Silence has many advantages. When you do not speak, other people presume you to be deaf or feeble-minded and promptly make a show of their own limitations.
Barbara Kingsolver