Barbara Kingsolver Quotes

Powerful Barbara Kingsolver for Daily Growth

About Barbara Kingsolver

Barbara Kingsolver, born on April 8, 1955, in Annapolis, Maryland, is an acclaimed American novelist, essayist, and poet renowned for her rich storytelling, complex characters, and exploration of social, political, and environmental issues. Raised in rural Kentucky, Kingsolver's love for nature and storytelling was deeply influenced by her upbringing. She earned a Bachelor of Science in Biology from DePauw University in 1977 and later pursued a Master of Arts in Creative Writing at the University of Arizona. Her literary journey began with the publication of her first book, "The Bean Trees," in 1988, which garnered critical acclaim and established her as a significant voice in contemporary literature. This novel was followed by "Animal Dreams" (1990) and "The Poisonwood Bible" (1998), a multigenerational epic set in the Belgian Congo, for which she received the National Book Critics Circle Award. In 2006, Kingsolver published "The Lacuna," a novel that spans the lives of two men over six decades and explores themes of identity, art, and politics. Her most recent work, "Unsheltered" (2018), is a multi-generational story set in Vineland, New Jersey, that delves into the struggles of modern-day America and the parallels with the past. Throughout her career, Kingsolver has been recognized for her literary achievements, including the Orange Prize for Fiction (now known as the Women's Prize) for "The Poisonwood Bible." She is also a dedicated environmental activist, co-owner of a 400-acre farm in southwestern Virginia, and author of the bestselling nonfiction book, "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life" (2007), which chronicles her family's year-long experiment of eating only locally produced food. Barbara Kingsolver continues to captivate readers with her powerful narratives and thought-provoking explorations of the human condition in a rapidly changing world.

Interpretations of Popular Quotes

"The only thing that's worse than being blind is having sight but no vision."

This quote by Barbara Kingsolver underscores the idea that not just physical sight, but also the ability to envision a future or a goal, is crucial for personal growth and success. It suggests that merely seeing things as they are without aspiring towards something greater can lead to a stagnant existence, while having both sight and vision - the ability to perceive reality and imagine possibilities - allows us to move forward with purpose and ambition.

"You get a shy girl and a microscope, you never know what you will find."

This quote suggests that when a timid or reserved individual is given an opportunity to explore, delve deeply into a subject, or engage in a passionate pursuit (in this case, using a microscope), their true capabilities, interests, or unique insights may unexpectedly emerge. It emphasizes the potential for personal growth and discovery when one embraces curiosity and takes the initiative to explore unknown territories.

"The real work of growing up is learning to take care of ourselves - physically, emotionally, spiritually."

This quote by Barbara Kingsolver emphasizes that maturity doesn't merely involve reaching a certain age or milestone, but it also encompasses the responsibility of self-care in all its aspects – physical, emotional, and spiritual. In essence, it suggests that as we grow, we should learn to prioritize our own wellbeing, recognizing that our personal health and development are essential components of personal growth and becoming fully realized individuals.

"To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness."

This quote suggests that optimism in difficult times is grounded in reality, acknowledging that while history reveals much pain and hardship, it equally demonstrates humanity's capacity for empathy, selflessness, bravery, and benevolence. In essence, the quote emphasizes that hopefulness, in spite of adversity, is a justified response to our shared human experience of compassion and resilience.

"The act of reading transforms us, if we let it. We enter another's mind, not pretending to 'be' there, but walking through with respect and curiosity and compassion, opening ourselves to new ideas, new feelings, new experiences."

Barbara Kingsolver's quote emphasizes the transformative power of reading literature. It suggests that when we read, we engage in an empathetic journey into another person's mind, not with the intention of replacing their identity but rather to learn from them, feel what they feel, and understand their experiences. In this process, we grow intellectually, emotionally, and culturally as we are exposed to different perspectives, ideas, and feelings that enrich our own understanding of the world and foster empathy towards others.

I grew up aware of all the people I depended on and who depended on me.

- Barbara Kingsolver

Me, Aware, Up, Depended

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

Mind, Living, Saved, Librarian

Sometimes the strength of motherhood is greater than natural laws.

- Barbara Kingsolver

Mother's Day, Natural Laws, Motherhood

Literature sucks you into another psyche. So the creation of empathy necessarily influences how you'll behave to other people.

- Barbara Kingsolver

Empathy, Sucks, Other, Psyche

Every time I step onto an airplane, I turn to the right and take a good, hard stare into the maw of the engine. I don't know what I'm looking for. I just do it.

- Barbara Kingsolver

Good, Turn, Right, Airplane

Being a novelist and being a mother have exactly coincided in my life: the call from my agent saying that I had a contract for my first novel - that was on my answering phone message when I got back from the hospital with my first child.

- Barbara Kingsolver

My Life, Back, Agent, Novelist

Pain reaches the heart with electrical speed, but truth moves to the heart as slowly as a glacier.

- Barbara Kingsolver

Truth, Pain, Moves, Slowly

When you pick up a novel from the bed side table, you put down your own life at the same time and you become another person for the duration.

- Barbara Kingsolver

Own, Bed, Side, Duration

You always need that spark of imagination. Sometimes I'm midway through a book before it happens. However, I don't wait for the muse to descend, I sit down every day and I work when I'm not delivering lambs on the farm.

- Barbara Kingsolver

Wait, Through, However, Spark

I know I'm a rare person, a trained scientist who writes fiction, because so few contemporary novelists engage with science.

- Barbara Kingsolver

Fiction, Novelists, Trained, Writes

Southern Appalachians have been ridiculed since the country began. In fiction, they're usually depicted in a cartoonish manner. The region is poor, and very suspicious of outsiders, so there's a sort of 'us versus them' situation. They're easy to poke fun at.

- Barbara Kingsolver

Country, Southern, Very, Versus

The older I get, the more I appreciate my rural childhood. I spent a lot of time outdoors, unsupervised, which is a blessing.

- Barbara Kingsolver

Childhood, More, Which, Outdoors

What a writer can do, what a fiction writer or a poet or an essay writer can do is re-engage people with their own humanity.

- Barbara Kingsolver

Own, Fiction, Essay, Fiction Writer

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.

- Barbara Kingsolver

Will, Other, Made, Runs

My morning begins with trying not to get up before the sun rises. But when I do, it's because my head is too full of words, and I just need to get to my desk and start dumping them into a file. I always wake with sentences pouring into my head.

- Barbara Kingsolver

Sun, Before, Sentences, Pouring

I don't understand how any good art could fail to be political.

- Barbara Kingsolver

Art, How, Fail, Good Art

It takes some courage to write fiction about politically controversial topics. The dread is you'll be labeled a political writer.

- Barbara Kingsolver

Some, Fiction, Topics, Controversial

People in my novels always have terrible problems. If they are not terrible, I make them more terrible.

- Barbara Kingsolver

More, Always, Them, Novels

I love developing children as characters. Children rarely have important roles in literary fiction - they are usually defined as cute or precious, or they create a plot by being kidnapped or dying.

- Barbara Kingsolver

Love, Precious, Fiction, Defined

Wars and elections are both too big and too small to matter in the long run. The daily work - that goes on, it adds up.

- Barbara Kingsolver

Life, Small, Big, Daily Work

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

Big, Same Thing, Importance, Relief

In the day-to-day, farm work is stress relief for me. At the end of the day, I love having this other career - my anti-job - that keeps me in shape and gives me control over a vegetal domain.

- Barbara Kingsolver

Love, Career, Other, Relief

Every time I write a new novel about something sombre and sobering and terrible I think, 'oh Lord, they're not going to want to go here'. But they do. Readers of fiction read, I think, for a deeper embrace of the world, of reality. And that's brave.

- Barbara Kingsolver

Here, I Think, I Write, Every Time

When people are frightened about going hungry and paying their mortgages, a scarcity model begins to prevail; they fear someone else will get their piece of the pie.

- Barbara Kingsolver

Will, Going, Mortgages, Frightened

To be hopeful, to embrace one possibility after another that is surely the basic instinct - crying out: High tide! Time to move out into the glorious debris. Time to take this life for what it is!

- Barbara Kingsolver

Tide, Move, Surely, Possibility

When I sit down to write, I consider myself an artist.

- Barbara Kingsolver

Myself, Artist, Consider, Sit

The important thing isn't the house. It's the ability to make it. You carry that in your brains and in your hands, wherever you go... It's one thing to carry your life wherever you go. Another thing to always go looking for it somewhere else.

- Barbara Kingsolver

Hands, Always, Wherever

Libraries are the one American institution you shouldn't rip off.

- Barbara Kingsolver

Institution, Libraries, Rip

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

Think, Want, Fountain, Penny

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. And living on the border between Mexico and the U.S. for so many years gave me a lot of insight into that.

- Barbara Kingsolver

Other, Against, I Think, Flint

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

Think, Other, I Think, Flint

Fiction and essays can create empathy for the theoretical stranger.

- Barbara Kingsolver

Empathy, Theoretical, Essays

We're animals. We're born like every other mammal and we live our whole lives around disguised animal thoughts.

- Barbara Kingsolver

Thoughts, Other, Lives, Disguised

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

Empathy, Through, Fiction, Novel

As a biologist, I can't think of myself as anything but an animal among animals and plant.

- Barbara Kingsolver

Myself, Think, Among, Biologist

Nonfiction requires enormous discipline. You construct the terms of your story, and then you stick to them.

- Barbara Kingsolver

Stick, Them, Terms, Nonfiction

I do my best work if I think about what it is I have to offer.

- Barbara Kingsolver

Think, Offer, I Think, Best Work

For me, writing time has always been precious, something I wait for and am eager for and make the best use of. That's probably why I get up so early and have writing time in the quiet dawn hours, when no one needs me.

- Barbara Kingsolver

Wait, Been, Eager, Early

I've always seen the world through the eyes of a scientist. I love the predictable outcomes that science gives us, the control over the world that that can render.

- Barbara Kingsolver

Love, Through, Always, Render

I live in a rural part of Virginia surrounded by farms and farmers.

- Barbara Kingsolver

Surrounded, Rural, Farms, Virginia

After 'The Poisonwood Bible' was published, several people believed that my parents were missionaries, which could not be further from the truth.

- Barbara Kingsolver

Bible, Missionaries, Which, Believed

Stop a minute, right where you are. Relax your shoulders, shake your head and spine like a dog shaking off cold water. Tell that imperious voice in your head to be still.

- Barbara Kingsolver

Voice, Shoulders, Still, Spine

Small change, small wonders - these are the currency of my endurance and ultimately of my life.

- Barbara Kingsolver

My Life, Small, Wonders, Currency

I live in southern Appalachia, so I'm surrounded by people who work very hard for barely a living wage. It's particularly painful that people are working the farms their parents and grandparents worked but aren't living nearly as well.

- Barbara Kingsolver

Surrounded, Southern, Very, Farms

Readers of fiction read, I think, for a deeper embrace of the world, of reality. And that's brave. I never get over being thankful for that - for the courage of my readers.

- Barbara Kingsolver

Think, Over, I Think, Readers

I don't bring expectations to any of my books. I don't tell people what to do. I want to invite them in.

- Barbara Kingsolver

Want, Tell, Books, Invite

What keeps you going isn't some fine destination but just the road you're on, and the fact that you know how to drive.

- Barbara Kingsolver

Fact, Some, How, Keeps

It's a funny thing: people often ask how I discipline myself to write. I can't begin to understand the question. For me, the discipline is turning off the computer and leaving my desk to do something else.

- Barbara Kingsolver

Discipline, Something Else, Desk

I can count all the ways in which being a mother has enriched my understanding of the world, of character, my sense of the future and my attachment to it. I can't imagine what kind of writer I'd be if I didn't have my kids.

- Barbara Kingsolver

Imagine, Which, Enriched, Attachment

It seems very safe to me to be surrounded by green growing things and water.

- Barbara Kingsolver

Growing, Surrounded, Very, Seems

I was trained in classical piano, but it kind of dawned on me that classical pianists compete for six job openings a year, and the rest of us get to play 'Blue Moon' in a hotel lobby.

- Barbara Kingsolver

Play, Compete, Dawned, Lobby

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.

- Barbara Kingsolver

Always, Been, May, Behave

I suppose that is my central obsession. What we owe to society, what we owe to ourselves.

- Barbara Kingsolver

Society, Obsession, Central, Owe

I never think that anything I'm writing is bluntly political in any way. I'm not going for commentary.

- Barbara Kingsolver

Think, Never, Going, Commentary

It kills you to see them grow up. But I guess it would kill you quicker if they didn't.

- Barbara Kingsolver

Grow, See, Them, Quicker

It's surprising how much memory is built around things unnoticed at the time.

- Barbara Kingsolver

How, Unnoticed, How Much, Surprising

At home, growing up, we weren't really poor. We had everything we needed, we just didn't have what we wanted.

- Barbara Kingsolver

Needed, Had, Really, Growing Up

Memory is a complicated thing, a relative to truth, but not its twin.

- Barbara Kingsolver

Truth, Memory, Thing, Complicated

Motherhood is so sentimentalised and romanticised in our culture. It's practically against the law to say there are moments in the day when you hate your children. Everyone actually has those moments.

- Barbara Kingsolver

Law, Everyone, Against, Motherhood

Empathy is really the opposite of spiritual meanness. It's the capacity to understand that every war is both won and lost. And that someone else's pain is as meaningful as your own.

- Barbara Kingsolver

Pain, Empathy, Meanness, Both

Most of my books have been about the complex ways an individual depends on community.

- Barbara Kingsolver

Been, Most, Books, Complex

The very least you can do in your life is to figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof.

- Barbara Kingsolver

Distance, Very, Figure, Roof

Most every book I bring into the world is like birthing a baby; it's a lot of effort!

- Barbara Kingsolver

Book, Bring, Like, Effort

What you lose in blindness is the space around you, the place where you are, and without that you might not exist. You could be nowhere at all.

- Barbara Kingsolver

Lose, Might, Could, Blindness

I'm not pretending to be ingenuous; I know what I'm doing.

- Barbara Kingsolver

Doing, Know, Pretending

Terms like that, 'Humane Society,' are devised with people like me in mind, who don't care to dwell on what happens to the innocent.

- Barbara Kingsolver

Mind, Like, Humane, Terms

The first sentence of a book is a promise.

- Barbara Kingsolver

Book, Sentence, First, Promise

The truth needs so little rehearsal.

- Barbara Kingsolver

Truth, Little, Needs, Rehearsal

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