Barbara Kingsolver

“I learned to write by reading the kind of books I wished I'd written.”

“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...”

“God doesn’t need to punish us. He just grants us a long enough life to punish ourselves.”

“I could never work out whether we were to view religion as a life-insurance policy or a life sentence. I can understand a wrathful God who'd just as soon dangle us all from a hook. And I can...”

“I wonder that religion can live or die on the strength of a faint, stirring breeze. The scent trail shifts, causing the predator to miss the pounce. One god draws in the breath of life and r...”

“So you make this deal with the gods. You do these dances and they'll send rain and good crops and the whole works? And nothing bad will ever happen. Right.' Prayer had always struck me as mo...”

“Time cures you first, and then it kills you.”

“A territory is only possessed for a moment in time.”

“Have you heard the songs they sing here in Kilanga?” he asked. “They’re very worshipful. It’s a grand way to begin a church service, singing a Congolese hymn to the rainfall on the seed yams...”

“Science doesn't tell us what we should do. It only tells us what is.”

“For scientists, reality is not optional.”

“Cars with flames painted on the hood might get more speeding tickets. Are the flames making the car go fast? No. Certain things just go together. And when they do, they are correlated. It is...”

“I attempted briefly to consecrate myself in the public library, believing every crack in my soul could be chinked with a book.”

“People love to read about sins and errors, but not their own.”

“People read books to escape the uncertainties of life.”

“I used to think religion was just more of the same thing. Dump responsibility on the big guy. Now I see an importance in that. It's a relief to accept that not everything is under your contr...”

“As a biologist, I can't think of myself as anything but an animal among animals and plant.”

“What you lose in blindness is the space around you, the place where you are, and without that you might not exist. You could be nowhere at all.”

“Southern Appalachians have been ridiculed since the country began. In fiction, they're usually depicted in a cartoonish manner. The region is poor, and very suspicious of outsiders, so there...”

“I think the most interesting parts of human experience might be the sparks that come from that sort of chipping flint of cultures rubbing against each other. And living on the border between...”