Root out all the "to be" verbs in your prose and bludgeon them until dead. No "It was" or "they are" or "I am." Don't let it be, make it happen. Barbara Kingsolver More Quotes by Barbara Kingsolver More Quotes From Barbara Kingsolver A woman without a man -- a condition of 'manlessness' -- is defined as alone. But a single mother is less alone than the average housewife. Barbara Kingsolver mother average men Ah, the mysterious croak. Here today, gone tomorrow. It's the best reason I can think of to throw open the blinds and risk belief. Right now, this minute, time to move out into the grief and glory. High tide. Barbara Kingsolver grief moving thinking If I had to give up my life for anything, it would have to have the resilience of hope, the elation of new literacy, the brilliant life of a field of flowers, the elementary kindness of bread. Nothing short of that. It would have to be something as sure as love. Barbara Kingsolver giving-up flower kindness I've never gotten over high school, to the extent that I'm still a little surprised that my friends want to hang out with me. Barbara Kingsolver want littles school It seems very safe to me to be surrounded by green growing things and water. Barbara Kingsolver growing safe water As a biologist, I can't think of myself as anything but an animal among animals and plant. Barbara Kingsolver plant animal thinking The first steps toward stewardship are awareness, appreciation, and the Barbara Kingsolver selfish wise appreciation There's always more to a story than a body can see from the fenceline. Barbara Kingsolver body stories Those first few weeks are an unearthly season. From the outside you remain so ordinary, no one can tell from looking that you have experienced an earthquake of the soul. You've been torn asunder, invested with an ancient, incomprehensible magic. It's the one thing that we never quite get over: that we contain our own future. Barbara Kingsolver magic soul earthquakes The last generation's worst fears became the next one's B-grade entertainment. Barbara Kingsolver next generations lasts Arterial-plaque specials that save minutes now can cost years, later on. Barbara Kingsolver minutes cost years 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 humanity people fiction Pure and unblemished souls must taste very bland, with an aftertaste of bitterness. Barbara Kingsolver bitterness taste soul Downstream is always someone else's up. Barbara Kingsolver I believe that the people who survive a cataclysm, rather than those who stand by and analyze it, are nearly always the more credible witnesses to their own history. Barbara Kingsolver witness believe people I don't *ever* write about real people. Art is supposed to be better than that. If you want a slice of life, look out the window. Barbara Kingsolver real writing art organization is the religion of the single parent. Barbara Kingsolver single-parent parent organization Plants do everything animals do, but slowly. They migrate, communicate, deceive, stalk their food and, with an ostentation of styles and perfumes to put the animal kingdom to shame, they make love. It's just that catching them in flagrante delicto might require time-lapse photography. Barbara Kingsolver making-love photography animal I rarely think of poetry as something I make happen; it is more accurate to say that it happens to me. Like a summer storm, a house afire, or the coincidence of both on the same day. Barbara Kingsolver poetry summer thinking Nine-tenths of human law is about possession. Barbara Kingsolver possession nine law
