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Sue Monk Kidd Quotes

Powerful Sue Monk Kidd for Daily Growth

Empathy is the most mysterious transaction that the human soul can have, and it's accessible to all of us, but we have to give ourselves the opportunity to identify, to plunge ourselves in a story where we see the world from the bottom up or through another's eyes or heart.

- Sue Monk Kidd

Soul, Through, Accessible, Identify

There's a gap somehow between empathy and activism. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke of 'soul force' - something that emanates from a deep truth inside of us and empowers us to act. Once you identify your inner genius, you will be able to take action, whether it's writing a check or digging a well.

- Sue Monk Kidd

Deep, Spoke, Martin Luther, Dr

With pencil, you can always erase.

- Sue Monk Kidd

Pencil, You, Always, Erase

As an adolescent, I went to charm school, where I learned to pour tea and relate to boys, which, as I recall, meant giving them the pickle jar to unscrew, whether it was too hard for me or not.

- Sue Monk Kidd

Meant, Which, Learned, Pickle

Gender and race got very entwined in the 19th century, as abolition broke out, and then women wanted the right to speak about it.

- Sue Monk Kidd

Broke, Very, Abolition, Entwined

I want to believe that while we may sometimes read in the misguided pursuit of preserving our separation, there is a greater impulse inside us that compels us to read in search of the common heart.

- Sue Monk Kidd

Want, May, Read, Compels

I grew up in the American South and came of age in the 1960s, an incredibly turbulent time. It was as if the seams of American life were being ripped apart with riots and protests.

- Sue Monk Kidd

South, American Life, Riots

Due to the sweeping time frame and the voices moving back and forth, the outline for 'The Invention of Wings' was the strangest one I've ever done. I created six large, separate outlines, one for each part of the book, and hung them around my study.

- Sue Monk Kidd

Study, Separate, Outlines, Outline

'The Secret Life of Bees' was my first novel, so I had no process. I was flying by the seat of my pants, as they say, trying to understand how I, as a novelist, would work with story.

- Sue Monk Kidd

Work, Process, Pants, Novelist

I feel like we need to be aware of the ways we use and misuse religious dogma: whether it takes us deeper into love and inclusion or it separates us.

- Sue Monk Kidd

Love, Like, Religious, Misuse

I write in a journal occasionally. But it is not a daily discipline for me.

- Sue Monk Kidd

Daily, I Write, Occasionally, Journal

I sometimes start keeping a journal about the writing process itself. Particularly when I get the ideas, and I am trying to brood over the chaos phase. In writing a novel, you really have to brood over a lot of chaos of ideas and possibilities.

- Sue Monk Kidd

Possibilities, Sometimes, Journal

I can't explain exactly why it lives within me for so long and passionately. But race matters to me; racial equality matters to me, as does gender. There is something about these kinds of social injustices that go to the deep of me.

- Sue Monk Kidd

Deep, Gender, Explain, Injustices

Unraveling external selves and coming home to our real identity is the true meaning of soul work.

- Sue Monk Kidd

Work, Soul, Real, Unraveling

I had begun to write novels because of a fierce, self-serving impulse in my own heart. I had not considered the potential in a book for felt communion, the bright largesse of intimately participating in the lives of other people.

- Sue Monk Kidd

Other, Communion, Considered, Self-Serving

For me, writing a novel goes on for years, and the solitude goes on, too. It tends to swallow me at times. I know it's a problem when my husband sends the dog in to retrieve me.

- Sue Monk Kidd

Husband, Goes, Swallow, Solitude

I came to believe that my true identity goes beyond the outer roles I play. It transcends the ego. I came to understand that there is an Authentic 'I' within - an 'I Am,' or divine spark within the soul.

- Sue Monk Kidd

Play, Goes, Within, Spark

Here is where our real selfhood is rooted, in the divine spark or seed, in the image of God imprinted on the human soul. The True Self is not our creation, but God's. It is the self we are in our depths. It is our capacity for divinity and transcendence.

- Sue Monk Kidd

Here, Image, Divinity, Spark

I'm always captivated by stories of women who find a way to be daring - misbehaving women.

- Sue Monk Kidd

Find, Always, Stories, Captivated

I have a fondness for historical fiction, something wondrous like 'Wolf Hall,' but I'll read most anything as long as the story grabs my mind or my heart, and preferably both. You would be hard pressed, however, to find science fiction on my shelves.

- Sue Monk Kidd

Fiction, However, Wondrous, Science Fiction

The True Self is not our creation, but God's. It is the self we are in our depths. It is our capacity for divinity and transcendence.

- Sue Monk Kidd

True, True Self, Divinity, Depths

I read usually in the morning, in my kitchen at breakfast - a short reading time, usually poetry. I read in bed every night. I usually get in bed pretty early with a book, and I read until I can't prop my eyes open anymore - sometimes rather late.

- Sue Monk Kidd

Book, Bed, Rather, Prop

Novels attempt to render human experience; that's really all they are. They are meant to convey empathy for the character.

- Sue Monk Kidd

Experience, Empathy, Meant, Novels

I knew from reading about Sarah Grimke that she'd been given a handmaid to be her personal slave and that her name was Hetty. The only other fact I knew about her was that Sarah taught her to read: They conspired in a very subversive way, by locking the door and screening the keyhole.

- Sue Monk Kidd

Door, Very, Handmaid, Locking

Giving voice to marginalised characters is extremely important to me. I want to explore the pain of disenfranchisement, the social strata and boundaries we create and how to make them more permeable.

- Sue Monk Kidd

Pain, Voice, Explore, Strata

There are so many different things out there trying to hook our attention, we writers have to be very selective and make certain that it is coming from inside out, not outside in.

- Sue Monk Kidd

Very, Selective, Writers, Different Things

I vividly remember the summer of 1964 with its voter registration drives, boiling racial tensions, and the erupting awareness of the cruelty of racism. I was never the same after that summer.

- Sue Monk Kidd

Racism, Racial, Cruelty, Registration

Reading was a huge part of my life as a child - we were a family of storytellers.

- Sue Monk Kidd

My Life, Were, Huge Part, Storytellers

I've always been a journal-keeper. I've always tried to write about how I'm experiencing life, and my feelings and thoughts.

- Sue Monk Kidd

Thoughts, Always, Been, Feelings

On weekends, I sit in a lounge chair on my balcony. I love to be outside when the weather's right. I can stay there pretty much all day.

- Sue Monk Kidd

Love, Pretty, Weekends, Sit

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