If you're standing in the manure pile, it's somebody's job to mention the stink. Barbara Kingsolver More Quotes by Barbara Kingsolver More Quotes From Barbara Kingsolver Life proceeds, it enrages. The untouched ones spend their luck without a thought, believing they deserve it. Barbara Kingsolver luck deserve believe 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 grief dark moving When moral superiority combines with billowing ignorance, they fill up a hot-air balloon that's awfully hard not to poke. Barbara Kingsolver ignorance air hot Sometimes the strength of motherhood is greater than natural laws. Barbara Kingsolver mothers-day family inspiring It's surprising how much memory is built around things unnoticed at the time. Barbara Kingsolver homecoming mindfulness memories Alice wonders if other women in the middle of the night have begun to resent their Formica. Barbara Kingsolver middle wonder night Oh, mercy. If it catches you in the wrong frame of mind, the King James Bible can make you want to drink poison in no uncertain terms. Barbara Kingsolver poison kings mind People read books to escape the uncertainties of life. Barbara Kingsolver uncertainty-of-life book people Sugar, it's no parade but you'll get down the street one way or another, so you'd just as well throw your shoulders back and pick up the pace. Barbara Kingsolver sugar pace way When we traded homemaking for careers, we were implicitly promised economic independence and worldly influence. But a devil of a bargain it has turned out to be in terms of daily life. We gave up the aroma of warm bread rising, the measured pace of nurturing routines, the creative task of molding our families' tastes and zest for life; we received in exchange the minivan and the Lunchable. Barbara Kingsolver zest careers creative Value is not made of money, but a tender balance of expectation and longing. Barbara Kingsolver pajamas balance expectations Humans can be fairly ridiculous animals. Barbara Kingsolver miracle vegetables animal Memory is a complicated thing, a relative to truth, but not its twin. Barbara Kingsolver criminal-mind inspirational memories A novel can educate to some extent, but first a novel has to entertain. That's the contract with the reader: you give me ten hours and I'll give you a reason to turn every page. I have a commitment to accessibility. I believe in plot. I want an English professor to understand the symbolism while at the same time I want the people I grew up with - who may not often read anything but the Sears catalog - to read my books. Barbara Kingsolver believe book commitment ... Urban friends ask me how I can stand living here, 'so far from everything?' When I hear this question over the phone, I'm usually looking out the window at a forest, a running creek, and a vegetable garden, thinking: Define everything. Barbara Kingsolver garden running thinking 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. Barbara Kingsolver cheer baby children 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 political dog people High fashion has the shelf life of potato salad. And when past its prime, it is similarly deadly. Barbara Kingsolver salad fashion past I'm widest awake as a writer doing something new, engaged in a process I'm not sure I can finish, generating at the edge of my powers. Some people bungee jump; I write. Barbara Kingsolver something-new writing people Forgive me, O Heavenly Father, according to the multitude of Thy mercies. I have lusted in my heart to break a man's skull and scatter the stench of his brains across several people's back yards. Barbara Kingsolver heart men father