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But I've Swallowed My Pride Before, That's For Sure. I'm Practically Lined With My Mistakes On The Inside Like A Bad-wallpapered Bathroom.
-Barbara Kingsolver
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But I've Swallowed My

Barbara Kingsolver
...
But I've Swallowed My Pride Before, That's For Sure. I'm Practically Lined With My Mistakes On The Inside Like A Bad-wallpapered Bathroom.

Understanding the Quote: "but i've swallowed my pride before, that's for sure. i'm practically lined..."

This quote by Barbara Kingsolver reflects deeply on the theme of mistake. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Mistake, Pride, Bathroom, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Barbara Kingsolver interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Barbara Kingsolver

Barbara Kingsolver is celebrated for insightful thoughts on mistake and pride. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

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Topic
Mistake
Pride
Bathroom
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Waiting
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Science Doesn't Tell Us What We Should Do. It Only Tells Us What Is.
Should
High Fashion Has The Shelf Life Of Potato Salad. And When Past Its Prime, It Is Similarly Deadly.
Fashion
Past
Salad
Those First Few Weeks Are An Unearthly Season. From The Outside You Remain So Ordinary, No One Can Tell From Looking That You Have Experienced An Earthquake Of The Soul. You've Been Torn Asunder, Invested With An Ancient, Incomprehensible Magic. It's The One Thing That We Never Quite Get Over: That We Contain Our Own Future.
Earthquakes
Soul
Magic
Every One Of Us Is Called Upon, Perhaps Many Times, To Start A New Life. A Frightening Diagnosis, A Marriage, A Move, Loss Of A Job...and Onward Full-tilt We Go, Pitched And Wrecked And Absurdly Resolute, Driven In Spite Of Everything To Make Good On A New Shore. To Be Hopeful, To Embrace One Possibility After Another--that Is Surely The Basic Instinct...crying Out: High Tide! Time To Move Out Into The Glorious Debris. Time To Take This Life For What It Is.
Jobs
Moving
Loss
Listen. To Live Is To Be Marked. To Live Is To Change, To Acquire The Words Of A Story, And That Is The Only Celebration We Mortals Really Know. In Perfect Stillness, Frankly, I've Only Found Sorrow.
Life
Inspiring
Perfect
Every Life Is Different Because You Passed This Way And Touched History.
Life
Different
Way
To Think Is Not Always To See.
Thinking
Corn Syrup And Added Fats Have Been Outed As Major Ingredients In Fast Food, But They Hide Out In Packaged Foods Too, Even Presumed-innocent Ones Like Crackers.
Animal
Vegetables
Corn Syrup
A First Child Is Your Own Best Foot Forward, And How You Do Cheer Those Little Feet As They Strike Out. You Examine Every Turn Of Flesh For Precocity, And Crow It To The World. But The Last One: The Baby Who Trails Her Scent Like A Flag Of Surrender Through Your Life When There Will Be No More Coming After--oh, That' S Love By A Different Name.
Baby
Cheer
Children
It's One Thing To Carry Your Life Wherever You Go. Another Thing To Always Go Looking For It Somewhere Else.
Somewhere Else
One Thing
Some Of Us Know How We Came By Our Fortune And Some Of Us Don't; But We Wear It All The Same
Fortune
Know How
Knows
So One Time When I Was Working In This Motel One Of The Toilets Leaked And I Had To Replace The Flapper Ball. Here's What It Said On The Package; I Kept It Till I Knew It By Heart: 'please Note. Parts Are Included For All Installations, But No Installation Requires All Of The Parts.' That's Kind Of My Philosophy About Men. I Don't Think There's An Installation Out There That Could Use All My Parts.
Philosophy
Heart
Men
Honk If You Love Jesus, Text While Driving If You Want To Meet Up.
Jesus
Want
Driving
I've Always Seen The World Through The Eyes Of A Scientist. I Love The Predictable Outcomes That Science Gives Us, The Control Over The World That That Can Render.
Eye
Giving
World
Maybe He's Been In Africa So Long He Has Forgotten That We Christians Have Our Own System Of Marriage, And It Is Called Monotony.
Christian
Long
Forgotten
A Novel Can Educate To Some Extent, But First A Novel Has To Entertain. That's The Contract With The Reader: You Give Me Ten Hours And I'll Give You A Reason To Turn Every Page. I Have A Commitment To Accessibility. I Believe In Plot. I Want An English Professor To Understand The Symbolism While At The Same Time I Want The People I Grew Up With - Who May Not Often Read Anything But The Sears Catalog - To Read My Books.
Believe
Book
Commitment
Gilbert Has Established Herself As A Straight-up Storyteller Who Dares Us Into Adventures Of Worldly Discovery, And This Novel Stands As A Winning Next Act. “the Signature Of All Things” Is A Bracing Homage To The Many Natures Of Genius And The Inevitable Progress Of Ideas, In A World That Reveals Its Best Truths To The Uncommonly Patient Minds.
Truth
Adventure
Winning
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.
Book
Jumping
Magic
When I Look Out The Window, I Exhale A Prayer Of Thanks For The Color Green, For My Children's Safety, For The Simple Acts Of Faith Like Planting A Garden That Helped See Us Through Another Spring, Another Summer. And I Inhale Some Kind Of Promise To Protect My Kids' Hopes And Good Intentions We Began With In This Country. Freedom Of Speech, The Protection Of Diversity - These Are The Most Important Ingredients Of American Civil Life And My Own Survival. If I Ever Took Them For Granted, I Don't Know.
Motivational
Summer
Country
The Substance Of Grief Is Not Imaginary. It's As Real As Rope Or The Absence Of Air, And Like Both Those Things, It Can Kill.
Real
Grief
Air
Want Is A Thing That Unfurls Unbidden Like Fungus, Opening Large Upon Itself, Stopless, Filling The Sky. But Needs, From One Day To The Next, Are Few Enough To Fit In A Bucket, With Room Enough Left To Rattle Like Brittle Brush In A Dry Wind.
Wind
Sky
One Day
People's Dreams Are Made Out Of What They Do All Day. The Same Way A Dog That Runs After Rabbits Will Dream Of Rabbits. It's What You Do That Makes Your Soul, Not The Other Way Around.
Running
Dream
Dog
Our House Is Like An Empty Cigarette Packet, Lying Around Reminding You What's Not In It.
Lying
House
Empty
I Know People. Most Have No Earthly Notion Of The Price Of A Snow-white Conscience.
White
People
Snow
I Could Never Work Out Whether We Were To View Religion As A Life-insurance Policy Or A Life Sentence.
Life
Views
Work Out
This Is How Moths Speak To Each Other. They Tell Their Love Across The Fields By Scent. There Is No Mouth, The Wrong Words Are Impossible, Either A Mate Is There Or He Is Not, And If So The Pair Will Find Each Other In The Dark.
Dark
Mouths
Scent
The Arrogance Of The Able-bodied Is Staggering. Yes, Maybe We'd Like To Be Able To Get Places Quickly, And Carry Things In Both Hands But Only Because We Have To Keep Up With The Rest Of You ... We Would Rather Be Just Like Us, And Have That Be All Right.
Hands
Arrogance
Able
Restraint Equals Indulgence
Restraint
Indulgence
Over The Last Decade Our Country Has Lost An Average Of 300 Farms A Week. Large Or Small, Each Of Those Was The Lifes Work Of A Real Person Or Family, People Who Built Their Lives Around A Promise And Watched It Break.
Country
Real
Animal
...nothing Momentous Comes In This World Unless It Comes On The Shoulders Of Kindness.
Kindness
World
This World
Our Plans Are Small And Somewhat Absurd.
Absurd
Plans
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.
Thinking
Castles
Way
There Were Two Things About Mama. One Is She Always Expected The Best Out Of Me. And The Other Is That Then No Matter What I Did, Whatever I Came Home With, She Acted Like It Was The Moon I Had Just Hung Up In The Sky And Plugged In All The Stars. Like I Was That Good.
Stars
Home
Moon
How Strange To Read Of A Place In A Book, And Then Stand On It, Listen To The Birds Sing, And Spit On The Cobbles If You Want.
Book
Bird
Want
In Kilanga, People Knew Nothing Of Things They Might Have Had - A Frigidaire? A Washer-dryer Combination? Really, They'd Sooner Imagine A Tree That Could Pull Up Its Feet And Go Bake Bread. It Didn't Occur To Them To Feel Sorry For Themselves.
Sorry
Feet
People
He Warned Mother Not To Flout God's Will By Expecting Too Much Of Us. "sending A Girl To College Is Like Pouring Water In Your Shoes,' He Still Loves To Say, As Often As Possible. 'it's Hard To Say Which Is Worse, Seeing It Run Out And Waste The Water, Or Seeing It Hold In And Wreck The Shoes.
Girl
Mother
Running
After 'the Poisonwood Bible' Was Published, Several People Believed That My Parents Were Missionaries, Which Could Not Be Further From The Truth.
People
Parent
Missionary
The Average Food Item On A U.s. Grocery Shelf Has Traveled Farther Than Most Families Go On Their Annual Vacations.
Animal
Vacation
Average
Pure And Unblemished Souls Must Taste Very Bland, With An Aftertaste Of Bitterness.
Soul
Taste
Bitterness
What I Want Is So Simple I Almost Can't Say It: Elementary Kindness.
Kindness
Simple
Want
I Live In A Rural Part Of Virginia Surrounded By Farms And Farmers.
Virginia
Farmers
Farms
People Ask Without Wanting To Know.
People
Knows
Asks
God Doesn’t Need To Punish Us. He Just Grants Us A Long Enough Life To Punish Ourselves.
Life
Religious
Long
Wars And Elections Are Both Too Big And Too Small To Matter In The Long Run. The Daily Work - That Goes On, It Adds Up.
Funny
Life
Running
Food Culture In The United States Has Long Been Cast As The Property Of A Privileged Class. It Is Nothing Of The Kind. Culture Is The Property Of A Species.
Animal
Vegetables
Food Culture
I Made It To The Childbearing Phase Without Tv Dependence, Then Looked Around And Thought, Well Gee, Why Start Now? Why Get A Pet Python On The Day You Decide To Raise Fuzzy Little Gerbils?
Python
Pet
Television
You Never Knew Which Split Second Might Be The Zigzag Bolt Dividing All That Went Before From The Everything That Comes Next.
Splits
Might
Next
Vengeance Does Not Subtract Any Numbers From The Equation Of Murder; It Only Adds Them.
Revenge
Numbers
Doe
There's Always A Part Of Your Nation's History That You Haven't Been Told That... Has A Powerful Impact On How You Yourself May Behave And May Believe.
Powerful
Believe
Impact
Quit Smoking, And Observe Posted Speed Limits. This Will Improve Your Odds Of Getting Old Enough To Be Wise.
Wise
Odds
Smoking
People Love To Read About Sins And Errors, But Not Their Own.
Errors
People
Sin
The Most Important Thing About A Person Is Always The Thing You Don't Know.
Important
Persons
Knows
In Fact, One Of The Things That I Really Love About Literary Fiction Is That It's One Of The Few Kinds Of Writing That Doesn't Tell Us What To Think Or What To Buy Or What To Wear. We're Surrounded By Advertising.
Writing
Thinking
Facts
But We've All Ended Up Giving Body And Soul To Africa, One Way Or Another. Even Adah, Who's Becoming An Expert In Tropical Epidemiology And Strange New Viruses. Each Of Us Got Our Heart Buried In Six Feet Of African Dirt; We Are All Co-conspirators Here. I Mean, All Of Us, Not Just My Family. So What Do You Do Now? You Get To Find Your Own Way To Dig Out A Heart And Shake It Off And Hold It Up To The Light Again.
Heart
Mean
Light
Maybe Life Doesn't Get Any Better Than This, Or Any Worse, And What We Get Is Just What We're Willing To Find: Small Wonders, Where They Grow.
Wonder
Grows
Willing
How Is It Right To Slip Free Of An Old Skin And Walk Away From The Scene Of The Crime? We Came, We Saw, We Took Away And We Left Behind, We Must Be Allowed Our Anguish And Our Regrets.
Regret
Skins
Saws
There Is No Point Treating A Depressed Person As Though She Were Just Feeling Sad, Saying, 'there Now, Hang On, You'll Get Over It.' Sadness Is More Or Less Like A Head Cold- With Patience, It Passes. Depression Is Like Cancer.
Depression
Cancer
Sadness
Because I Write Fiction That Is Based In The Real World, It's Going To Lead People Into Some Of The Modern Dilemmas And Concerns And Even Catastrophes That They Will Think About In A New Way.
Real
Writing
Thinking
Illusions Mistaken For Truth Are The Pavement Under Our Feet. They Are What We Call Civilization.
Civilization
Feet
Pavement
God, Why Does A Mortal Man Have Children? It Is Senseless To Love Anything This Much.
Children
Men
Doe
The Way I See It, A Person Isn't Nothing More Than A Scarecrow... The Only Difference Between One That Stands Up Good And One That Blows Over Is What Kind Of A Stick They're Stuck Up There On.
Blow
Differences
Way
He Needs To Go Rub His Soul Against Life.
Soul
Needs
Mistakes Wreck Your Life. But They Make What You Have. It's Kind Of All One. You Know What Hester Told Me When We Were Working The Sheep One Time? She Said It's No Good To Complain About Your Flock, Because It's The Put-together Of All Your Past Choices.
Mistake
Past
Sheep
Wake Up Now, Look Alive, For Here Is A Day Off Work Just To Praise Creation: The Turkey, The Squash, And The Corn, These Things That Ate And Drank Sunshine, Grass, Mud, And Rain, And Then In The Shortening Days Laid Down Their Lives For Our Welfare And Onward Resolve. There's The Miracle For You, The Absolute Sacrifice That Still Holds Back Seed: A Germ Of Promise To Do The Whole Thing Again, Another Time. . . Thanksgiving Is Creation's Birthday Party. Praise Harvest, A Pause And Sigh On The Breath Of Immortality.
Party
Rain
Sunshine
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