Barbara Kingsolver
Barbara Kingsolver
Barbara Kingsolveris an American novelist, essayist and poet. She was raised in rural Kentucky and lived briefly in the Congo in her early childhood. Kingsolver earned degrees in biology at DePauw University and the University of Arizona and worked as a freelance writer before she began writing novels. Her widely known works include The Poisonwood Bible, the tale of a missionary family in the Congo, and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, a non-fiction account of her family's attempts to eat locally...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth8 April 1955
CountryUnited States of America
Our holiday food splurge was a small crate of tangerines, which we found ridiculously thrilling after an eight-month abstinence from citrus.... Lily hugged each one to her chest before undressing it as gently as a doll. Watching her do that as she sat cross-legged on the floor one morning in pink pajamas, with bliss lighting her cheeks, I thought: Lucky is the world, to receive this grateful child. Value is not made of money, but a tender balance of expectation and longing.
To people who think of themselves as God's houseguests, American enterprise must seem arrogant beyond belief. Or stupid. A nation of amnesiacs, proceeding as if there were no other day but today. Assuming the land could also forget what had been done to it.
He was my father. I own half his genes, and all of his history. Believe this: the mistakes are part of the story. I am born of a man who believed he could tell nothing but the truth, while he set down for all time the Poisonwood Bible.
I considered her my ally, because, like me, she was imperfect.
How pointless life could be, what a foolish business of inventing things to love, just so you could dread losing them.
Even feigning surprise, pretending it was unexpected and saying a ritual thanks, is surely wiser than just expecting everything so carelessly.
I'm not pretending to be ingenuous; I know what I'm doing.
I learned to write by reading the kind of books I wished I'd written.
Sometimes the strength of motherhood is greater than natural laws.
Don't wait for the muse. She has a lousy work ethic. Writers just write.
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.
It's surprising how much memory is built around things unnoticed at the time.
A certain feeling comes from throwing your good life away, and it is one part rapture.
That was when we smelled the rain. It was so strong it seemed like more than just a smell. When we stretched out our hands we could practically feel it rising up from the ground. I don’t know how a person could ever describe that scent.