Quote

Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, writers will go to stupefying lengths to get the infernal roar of words out of their skulls and onto paper.

Barbara Kingsolver

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Barbara Kingsolver
Age: 69
Born: 1955
Born: April 8
Essayist
Novelist
Poet
Writer
Annapolis
Maryland
Paper
Onto
Words
Gotta
Birds
Stupefying
Length
Infernal
Fish
Lengths
Fishes
Roar
Bird
Skulls
Writers
Swim

More quotes by 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
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People love to read about sins and errors, but not their own.
Barbara Kingsolver
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A certain feeling comes from throwing your good life away, and it is one part rapture.
Barbara Kingsolver
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It's very important to distinguish between innocence and naivete. The innocent do not deserve to be the victims of violence. But only the naive refuse to think about the origins of violence and to pursue the possibility that the genesis of that hatred could be addressed.
Barbara Kingsolver
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We're animals. We're born like every other mammal and we live our whole lives around disguised animal thoughts.
Barbara Kingsolver
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I concentrate on character, theme, language, structure, voice. It actually surprises me that no matter what I write, people declare it intently political. I'm just writing about the world I know, as it is. Wounds and griefs included.
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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Be still, and the world is bound to turn herself inside out to entertain you. Everywhere you look, joyful noise is clanging to drown out quiet desperation.
Barbara Kingsolver
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Good fiction creates empathy. A novel takes you somewhere and asks you to look through the eyes of another person, to live another life.
Barbara Kingsolver
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The most important thing about a person is always the thing you don't know.
Barbara Kingsolver
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Recall that whatever lofty things you might accomplish today, you will do them only because you first ate something that grew out of the dirt.
Barbara Kingsolver
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Many of us who aren't farmers or gardeners still have some element of farm nostalgia in our family past, real or imagined: a secret longing for some connection to a life where a rooster crows in the yard.
Barbara Kingsolver
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If someone does learn about the world from reading a novel of mine, that makes me very happy. It's probably not what brings me into the novel in the first place - I usually am pulled in by some big question about the world and human nature that I'm not going to resolve in the course of the novel. But I'm very devoted to getting my facts straight.
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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The power is in the balance: we are our injuries, as much as we are our successes.
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 wrong words are impossible when there are no words.
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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Illusions mistaken for truth are the pavement under our feet. They are what we call civilization.
Barbara Kingsolver
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Finally, cooking is good citizenship. It's the only way to get serious about putting locally raised foods into your diet, which keeps farmlands healthy and grocery money in the neighborhood.
Barbara Kingsolver