Quotes by Barbara Kingsolver

“Peoples dreams are made out of what they do all day. The same way a dog that runs after rabbits will dream of rabbits. Its what you do that makes your soul, not the other way around.”

“What keeps you going isnt some fine destination but just the road youre on, and the fact that you know how to drive.”

“Im 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.”

“Sometimes the strength of motherhood is greater than natural laws.”

“The truth needs so little rehearsal.”

“Libraries are the one American institution you shouldnt rip off.”

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

“Why does a person even get up in the morning? You have breakfast, you floss your teeth so youll 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 cant stand it.”

“It wasnt a matter of courage or dreams, but something a whole lot simpler. A pilot would call it ground orientation. Id spent a long time circling above the clouds, looking for life, while Hallie was living it.”

“Theres a graveyard in northern France where all the dead boys from D-Day are buried. The white crosses reach from one horizon to the other. I remember looking it over and thinking it was a forest of graves. But the rows were like this, dizzying, diagonal, perfectly straight, so after all it wasnt a forest but an orchard of graves. Nothing to do with nature, unless you count human nature.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Patriotism threatens free speech with death. In other words, the American flag stands for intimidation, censorship, violence, bigotry, sexism, homophobia and shoving the Constitution through a paper shredder. Who are we calling terrorists?”

“Close the door. Write with _no one_ looking over your shoulder. Dont try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. Its the one and only thing you have to offer.”

“It kills you to see them grow up. But I guess it would kill you quicker if they didnt.”

“Were animals. Were born like every other mammal and we live our whole lives around disguised animal thoughts.”

“Your library is your portrait.”

A first child is your own best foot forward, and how you do cheer those little feet as they strike out. You examine every turn of flesh for precocity, and crow it to the world. But the last one: the baby who trails her scent like a flag of surrender through your life when there will be no more coming after--oh, that s love by a different name.

Don’t try to make life a mathematics problem with yourself in the center and everything coming out equal. When you’re good, bad things can still happen. And if you’re bad, you can still be lucky.

What I want is so simple I almost cant say it: elementary kindness.