Tall and straight I may appear, but I will always be Ada inside. A crooked little person trying to tell the truth. The power is in the balance: we are our injuries, as much as we are our successes Barbara Kingsolver More Quotes by Barbara Kingsolver More Quotes From Barbara Kingsolver This manuscript of yours that has just come back from another editor is a precious package. Don't consider it rejected. Consider that you've addressed it 'to the editor who can appreciate my work' and it has simply come back stamped 'Not at this address'. Just keep looking for the right address. Barbara Kingsolver appreciate editors writing Come to think of it, just about every tool was shaped like either a weenie or a pistol, depending on your point of view. Barbara Kingsolver views men thinking I did it to win love, and to prove myself capable. Not to move mountains. In my opinions, mountains don't move. They only look changed when you look down on them from great height. Barbara Kingsolver mountain winning moving It's the same struggle for each of us, and the same path out: the utterly simple, infinitely wise, ultimately defiant act of loving one thing and then another, loving our way back to life. Barbara Kingsolver struggle wise love Arguments could fill a marriage like water, running through everything, always, with no taste or color but lots of noise. Barbara Kingsolver color running water The daily work - that goes on, it adds up. Barbara Kingsolver inspirational-life goes-on add Wherever I am, let me never forget to distinguish want from need Barbara Kingsolver charity want needs the novel is inherently a political instrument, regardless of its subject. It invites you - more than invites you, induces you - to live inside another person's skin. It creates empathy. And that's the antidote to bigotry. The novel doesn't just tell you about another life, which is what a newspaper would do. It makes you live another life, inhabit another perspective. And that's very important. Barbara Kingsolver empathy perspective political Height isn't something you can have and just let be, like nice teeth or naturally curly hair. People have this idea you have to put it to use, playing basketball, for example, or observing the weather up there. If you are a girl, they feel a particular need to point your height out to you, as if you might not have noticed. Barbara Kingsolver nice girl basketball A good title holds magic, some cognitive dissonance, a little grit between the teeth, but above all it is the jumping-off place into wonder. Barbara Kingsolver magic jumping book You never knew which split second might be the zigzag bolt dividing all that went before from the everything that comes next. Barbara Kingsolver splits next might Children model the behavior of adults, on whatever scale is available to them. Ours are growing up in a nation whose most important, influential men - from presidents to the coolest film characters - solve problems by killing people. ... We have taught our children in a thousand ways, sometimes with flag-waving and sometimes with a laugh track, that the bad guy deserves to die. Barbara Kingsolver growing-up character children ...whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. And peace will be with you. Barbara Kingsolver lovely praise thinking I know people. Most have no earthly notion of the price of a snow-white conscience. Barbara Kingsolver white snow people A dog can't think that much about what he's doing, he just does what feels right. Barbara Kingsolver dog doe thinking The most assiduous task of parenting is to divine the difference between boundaries and bondage. Barbara Kingsolver differences tasks father Mom is losing, no doubt, because our vegetables have come to lack two features of interest: nutrition and flavor. Storage and transport take predictable tolls on the volatile plant compounds that subtly add up to taste and food value. Breeding to increase shelf life also has tended to decrease palatability. Bizarre as it seems, we've accepted a tradeoff that amounts to: "Give me every vegetable in every season, even if it tastes like a cardboard picture of its former self." Barbara Kingsolver mom vegetables self Prayer had always struck me as more or less a glorified attempt at a business transaction. Barbara Kingsolver transactions prayer The reason most people have kids is because they get pregnant. Barbara Kingsolver kids children people I don't understand how any good art could fail to be political. Barbara Kingsolver failing political art