Quote

What we end up calling history is a kind of knife, slicing down through time. A few people are hard enough to bend its edge. But most won't even stand close to the blade. I'm one of those. We don't bend anything.

Barbara Kingsolver

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Barbara Kingsolver
Age: 69
Born: 1955
Born: April 8
Essayist
Novelist
Poet
Writer
Annapolis
Maryland
Time
Stand
Bend
People
History
Blades
Ends
Knife
Anything
Knives
Enough
Edge
Hard
Edges
Even
Calling
Slicing
Kind
Close
Blade

More quotes by Barbara Kingsolver

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Literature sucks you into another psyche. So the creation of empathy necessarily influences how you'll behave to other people.
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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.
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There's always a part of your nation's history that you haven't been told that... has a powerful impact on how you yourself may behave and may believe.
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From my earliest memory, times of crisis seemed to end up with women in the kitchen preparing food for men.
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Ah, the mysterious croak. Here today, gone tomorrow. It's the best reason I can think of to throw open the blinds and risk belief. Right now, this minute, time to move out into the grief and glory. High tide.
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People's dreams are made out of what they do all day. The same way a dog that runs after rabbits will dream of rabbits. It's what you do that makes your soul, not the other way around.
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You don't think you'll live past it and you don't really. The person you were is gone. But the half of you that's still alive wakes up one day and takes over again.
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Why does a person even get up in the morning? You have breakfast, you floss your teeth so you'll have healthy gums in your old age, and then you get in your car and drive down I-10 and die. Life is so stupid I can't stand it.
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I'm never going to tell the reader what to believe I'm going to examine these characters that believe different ways, and examine their motives.
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Arterial-plaque specials that save minutes now can cost years, later on.
Barbara Kingsolver
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The wrong words are impossible when there are no words.
Barbara Kingsolver
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A woman without a man -- a condition of 'manlessness' -- is defined as alone. But a single mother is less alone than the average housewife.
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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.
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Do you think its possible to live without wanting to put your name on your paintings? To belong to a group so securely you don't need to rise above it?
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I don't look like who I am.
Barbara Kingsolver
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Perhaps growing up meant we put our knives away and feigned ignorance of the damage.
Barbara Kingsolver
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Nine-tenths of human law is about possession.
Barbara Kingsolver
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Humans can be fairly ridiculous animals.
Barbara Kingsolver
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Literature is one of the few kinds of writing in the world that does not tell you what to buy, want, see, be, or believe. It's more like conversation, raising new questions and inspiring you to answer them for yourself.
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Hallie and I... were all there was. The image in the mirror that proves you are still here. We had exactly one sister apiece. We grew up knowing the simple arithmetic of scarcity: A sister is more precious than an eye.
Barbara Kingsolver