Quotes from Barbara Kingsolver

Because I could not stop for death he kindly stopped for me, or paused at least to strike a glancing blow with his sky-blue mouth as he passed.

When I want to take God at his word exactly, I take a peep out the window at His creation. Because that, darling, He makes fresh for us everyday...

Lies are infinite in number, and the truth so small and singular.

They all attended Hester's church, which Dellarobia viewed as a complicated pyramid scheme of moral debt and credit resting ultimately on the shoulders of the Lord, but rife with middle managers.

It's safer knowing more about people than they know about you.

A breeze shook rain out of new leaves onto their hair, but in their pursuit of eternity they never noticed the chill.

Insomnia's different," I said. It was hard to explain this to people. "You know the light that comes on when you open the refrigerator door? Just imagine it stays on all the time, even after you close the door. That's what it's like in my head. The light stays on.

I never learn anything from listening to myself.

At the time, I thought my life couldn't get any worse. Here's some advice: Don't ever think that.

The thing is, it's my own fault. I just can't put up with a person that won't go out of his way for me. And that's what a man is. Somebody that won't go out of his way for you. I bet it says that in the dictionary.

But nothing on this earth is guaranteed, when you get right down to it, you know? I've been thinking about that. About how your kids aren't really YOURS, they're just these people that you try to keep an eye on, and hope you'll all grow up someday to like each other and still be in one piece. What I mean is, everything you get is really just on loan. Does that make sense? Sure, I said. Like library books. Sooner or later they've all got to go back into the nightdrop.

I said probably they were just scared he was going to put ideas in our heads. She smiled. "Imagine that. A teacher, putting ideas in kids' heads.