At some point in my life I'd honestly hoped love would rescue me from the cold, drafty castle I lived in. But at another point, much earlier I think, I'd quietly begun to hope for nothing at all in the way of love, so as not to be disappointed. It works. It gets to be a habit.
To be hopeful, to embrace one possibility after another--that is surely the basic instinct. Baser even than hate, the thing with teeth, which can be stilled with a tone of voice or stunned by beauty. If the whole world of the living has to turn on the single point of remaining alive, that pointed endurance is the poetry of hope. The thing with feathers.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER, High Tide in Tucson
I attempted briefly to consecrate myself in the public library, believing every crack in my soul could be chinked with a book.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER, The Poisonwood Bible
Kids don't stay with you if you do it right. It's the one job where, the better you are, the more surely you won't be needed in the long run.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER, Pigs in Heaven
Value is not made of money, but a tender balance of expectation and longing.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life
A mother's body remembers her babies -- the folds of soft flesh, the softly furred scalp against her nose. Each child has its own entreaties to body and soul.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER, The Poisonwood Bible
The very least you can do in your life is figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER, Animal Dreams
Hunger of the body is altogether different from the shallow, daily hunger of the belly. Those who have known this kind of hunger cannot entirely love, ever again, those who have not.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER, The Poisonwood Bible
You can't learn anything when you're trying to look like the smartest person in the room.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER, The Poisonwood Bible
