Quotes from Barbara Kingsolver

The larger the corporation, the more distant its motives are apt to be from the original spirit of organic farming—and the farther the products will likely be shipped to buyers who will smile at the happy farm picture on the package, and never be the wiser.

But a spontaneous traveler inevitably will end up with the tummy gauge suddenly on empty, in some place where cuisine is not really the point: a museum cafeteria, or late-night snack bar across from the concert hall. Eating establishments where cuisine isn't the point—is that a strange notion?

Mom had promised to stay clean as long as I was a good enough son to make it worth her while.

Killing is a culturally loaded term, for most of us inextricably tied up with some version of a command that begins, "Thou shalt not." Every faith has it. And for all but perhaps the Jainists of India, that command is absolutely conditional. We know it does not refer to mosquitoes.

I didn't wish to be comforted. "You can't replace people you love with other people," I said. "They're not like old shoes or something." "No. But you can trust that you're not going to run out of people to love.

It is in his absence I prosper.

if you look hard enough you can always see reasons, but you'll go crazy if you think it's all punishment for your sins.

Heroes may be less than heroic, while the common man saves the day.

You can fool history sometimes, but you can't fool the memory of your intimates.

There are Christians, and there are Christians.

That's high school for you, a bevy of people unfit for adult life encounters in any form.

After the final no there comes a yes And on that yes the future world depends. —WALLACE STEVENS, "The Well Dressed Man with a Beard