Quote

If you're standing in the manure pile, it's somebody's job to mention the stink.

Barbara Kingsolver

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Barbara Kingsolver
Age: 69
Born: 1955
Born: April 8
Essayist
Novelist
Poet
Writer
Annapolis
Maryland
Manure
Stink
Pile
Mention
Standing
Somebody
Jobs

More quotes by Barbara Kingsolver

Image
Science doesn't tell us what we should do. It only tells us what is.
Barbara Kingsolver
Image
you can't really know the person standing before you, because always there is some missing piece
Barbara Kingsolver
Image
The average food item on a U.S. grocery shelf has traveled farther than most families go on their annual vacations.
Barbara Kingsolver
Image
Value is not made of money, but a tender balance of expectation and longing.
Barbara Kingsolver
Image
Tomorrow these villagers would carry their secret icons into the church without any priest and light the candles themselves, moving together in single-minded grace. Like the school of the fish, so driven to righteousness they could flout the law, declare the safety of their souls, then go home and destroy the evidence.
Barbara Kingsolver
Image
Life proceeds, it enrages. The untouched ones spend their luck without a thought, believing they deserve it.
Barbara Kingsolver
Image
As long as I kept moving, my grief streamed out behind me like a swimmer's long hair in water. I knew the weight was there but it didn't touch me. Only when I stopped did the slick, dark stuff of it come floating around my face, catching my arms and throat till I began to drown. So I just didn't stop.
Barbara Kingsolver
Image
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
Image
Sometimes I prayed for Baby Jesus to make me good, but Baby Jesus didn't.
Barbara Kingsolver
Image
Prayer had always struck me as more or less a glorified attempt at a business transaction.
Barbara Kingsolver
Image
It's terrible to lose somebody, but it's also true that some people never have anybody to lose, and I think that's got to be so much worse.
Barbara Kingsolver
Image
Eaters must understand, how we eat determines how the world is used.
Barbara Kingsolver
Image
I learned to produce whether I wanted to or not. It would be easy to say oh, I have writer's block, oh, I have to wait for my muse. I don't. Chain that muse to your desk and get the job done.
Barbara Kingsolver
Image
Morality is not a large, constructed *thing* you have or have not, but simply a capacity. Something you carry with you in your brain and in your hands.
Barbara Kingsolver
Image
...nothing momentous comes in this world unless it comes on the shoulders of kindness.
Barbara Kingsolver
Image
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
Image
People love to read about sins and errors, but not their own.
Barbara Kingsolver
Image
A flower is a plant's way of making love.
Barbara Kingsolver
Image
Children can be your heartache. But that doesn't matter, you have to go on and have them . . . it works out.
Barbara Kingsolver
Image
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