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Every Time I Step Onto An Airplane, I Turn To The Right And Take A Good, Hard Stare Into The Maw Of The Engine. I Don't Know What I'm Looking For. I Just Do It.

-Barbara Kingsolver

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Every Time I Step

Barbara Kingsolver

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Every Time I Step Onto An Airplane, I Turn To The Right And Take A Good, Hard Stare Into The Maw Of The Engine. I Don't Know What I'm Looking For. I Just Do It.

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When The Scope Of The Problem Seems Insuperable, Isn't It Time To Call This One, Give It Up, And Get On With Life As We Know It. I Do Know That Answer To That One: That's Called Child Abuse. When My Teenager Worries That Her Generation Won't Be Able To Fix This Problem, I Have To Admit To Her That It Won't Be Up To Her Generation. It's Up To Mine. This Is A Now-or-never Kind Of Project.

I Know People. Most Have No Earthly Notion Of The Price Of A Snow-white Conscience.

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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.

I Look At My Four Boys, Who Are The Colors Of Silt, Loam, Dust, And Clay, An Infinite Palette For Children Of Their Own, And I Understand That Time Erases Whiteness Altogether.

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He Needs To Go Rub His Soul Against Life.

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She Is Inhumanly Alone. And Then, All At Once, She Isn't.

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Mother Could Go For One Year Without Food, But Not One Day Without Her Lip Sticks.

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War So Conspicuously Benefits Rich Men And Kills The Poor Ones.

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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.

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Your Own Family Resemblances Are A Frustrating Code, Most Easily Read By Those Who Know You Least.

The Loudest Sound On Earth, She Thought, Is A Man With Nothing To Do.

Good Fiction Creates Empathy. A Novel Takes You Somewhere And Asks You To Look Through The Eyes Of Another Person, To Live Another Life.

You Know Things Are Bad When A Woman Without Any Legs And Who Recently Lost Two Of Her Own Kids Feels Sorry For You.

Food Is The Rare Moral Arena In Which The Ethical Choice Is Generally The One More Likely To Make You Groan With Pleasure.

He Had Senile Dementia And Liked To Go Outside Naked, But He Could Still Do Two Things Perfectly: Win At Checkers And Write Out Prescriptions.

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For Lou Ann, Life Itself Was A Life-threatening Enterprise.

A Flower Is A Plant's Way Of Making Love.

The Daily Work - That Goes On, It Adds Up.

Inspirational Life

As A Biologist, I Can't Think Of Myself As Anything But An Animal Among Animals And Plant.

You Can't Really Know The Person Standing Before You, Because Always There Is Some Missing Piece

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Memory Is A Complicated Thing, A Relative To Truth, But Not Its Twin.

Plot Comes First. The Plot Is The Archictecture Of Your Novel. You Wouldn't Build A House Without A Plan. If I Wrote Without A Plot, It Would Just Be A Pile Of Bricks. Characters Are Your Servants. They Must Serve Your Plot.

God, Why Does A Mortal Man Have Children? It Is Senseless To Love Anything This Much.

People Ask Without Wanting To Know.

Our Plans Are Small And Somewhat Absurd.

I Believe With All My Heart In Delivering On My Contract With My Readers. They've Got Plenty Of Other Things To Do, So I Had Better Give Them A Reason To Turn Every One Of These 550 Pages. This Is My Promise: I Solemnly Swear I'll Make You Laugh Out Loud At Least Once, Cry A Little In Private, And Burn Whatever You Left On The Stove.

Life Proceeds, It Enrages. The Untouched Ones Spend Their Luck Without A Thought, Believing They Deserve It.

A Human Being Can Be Good Or Bad Or Right Or Wrong, Maybe. But How Can You Say A Person Is Illegal? You Just Can't. That's All There Is To It.

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.

Hallie And I... Were All There Was. The Image In The Mirror That Proves You Are Still Here. We Had Exactly One Sister Apiece. We Grew Up Knowing The Simple Arithmetic Of Scarcity: A Sister Is More Precious Than An Eye.

I Don't Look Like Who I Am.

Your Dreams, What You Hope For And All That, It's Not Separate From Your Life. It Grows Right Up Out Of It.

It's One Thing To Carry Your Life Wherever You Go. Another Thing To Always Go Looking For It Somewhere Else.

Once The Rains Abated, My Father's Garden Thrived In The Heat Like An Unleashed Temper.

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.

Memory Runs Along Deep, Fixed Channels In The Brain, Like Electricity Along Its Conduits; Only A Cataclysm Can Make The Electrons Rear Up In Shock And Slide Over Into Another Channel. The Human Mind Seems Doomed To Believe, As Simply As A Rooster Believes, That Where We Are Now Is The Only Possibility

You Never Knew Which Split Second Might Be The Zigzag Bolt Dividing All That Went Before From The Everything That Comes Next.

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.

Sometimes The Strength Of Motherhood Is Greater Than Natural Laws.

Value Is Not Made Of Money, But A Tender Balance Of Expectation And Longing.

A Choir Of Seedlings Arching Their Necks Out Of Rotted Tree Stumps, Sucking Life Out Of Death. I Am The Forest's Conscience, But Remember, The Forest Eats Itself And Lives Forever.

Everything You're Sure Is Right Can Be Wrong In Another Place.

We're Animals. We're Born Like Every Other Mammal And We Live Our Whole Lives Around Disguised Animal Thoughts.

My Own Relationships With The Animals In My Life Are Absurdly Complex: Some I Love, Some I Eat, And The Scraps Left Over From The Ones I Eat, I Feed To The Ones I Love.

But 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.

Now I'm Starting To Think He Wasn't Supposed To Be My Whole Life, He Was Just This Doorway To Me.

The Happiest People Are The Ones With The Most Community.

To People Who Think Of Themselves As God's Houseguests, American Enterprise Must Seem Arrogant Beyond Belief. Or Stupid. A Nation Of Amnesiacs, Proceeding As If There Were No Other Day But Today. Assuming The Land Could Also Forget What Had Been Done To It.

It's What You Do That Makes Your Soul.

My Life Is A Pitiful, Mechanical Thing Without A Past, Like A Little Wind-up Car, Ready To Run In Any Direction Someone Points Me.

Root Out All The "to Be" Verbs In Your Prose And Bludgeon Them Until Dead. No "it Was" Or "they Are" Or "i Am." Don't Let It Be, Make It Happen.

Quit Smoking, And Observe Posted Speed Limits. This Will Improve Your Odds Of Getting Old Enough To Be Wise.

Few People Know So Clearly What They Want. Most People Can't Even Think What To Hope For When They Throw A Penny In A Fountain.

If We Can't, As Artists, Improve On Real Life, We Should Put Down Our Pencils And Go Bake Bread.

He Was Getting That Look He Gets, Oh Boy, Like Here Comes Moses Tromping Down Off Of Mount Syanide With Ten Fresh Ways To Wreck Your Life.

In The Places That Call Me Out, I Know I'll Recover My Wordless Childhood Trust In The Largeness Of Life And Its Willingness To Take Me In.

Given My Own Circumstances, I Find That Anything Can Turn Out To Belong Nearly Anywhere.

Tall And Straight I May Appear, But I Will Always Be Ada Inside. A Crooked Little Person Trying To Tell The Truth. The Power Is In The Balance: We Are Our Injuries, As Much As We Are Our Successes

Back Then I Was Still Appalled That God Would Set Down His Barefoot Boy And Girl Dollies Into An Eden Where, Presumably, He Had Just Turned Loose Elephantiasis And Microes That Eat The Human Cornea. Now I Understand, God Is Not Just Rooting Fo The Dollies.

If You Want Sweet Dreams, You've Got To Live A Sweet Life.

Respecting The Dignity Of A Spectacular Food Means Enjoying It At Its Best. Europeans Celebrate The Short Season Of Abundant Asparagus As A Form Of Holiday. In The Netherlands The First Cutting Coincides With Father's Day, On Which Restaurants May Feature All-asparagus Menus And Hand Out Neckties Decorated With Asparagus Spears.

Our Childhood Had Passed Over Into History Overnight. The Transition Was Unnoticed By Anyone But Ourselves.

The Reason Most People Have Kids Is Because They Get Pregnant.

My Father Wears His Faith Like The Bronze Breastplate Of God's Footsoldiers While Our Mother's Is More Like A Good Cloth Coat With A Secondhand Fit.

Households That Have Lost The Soul Of Cooking From Their Routines May Not Know What They Are Missing: The Song Of A Stir-fry Sizzle, The Small Talk Of Clinking Measuring Spoons, The Yeasty Scent Of Rising Dough, The Painting Of Flavors Onto A Pizza Before It Slides Into The Oven.

I Know I'm A Rare Person, A Trained Scientist Who Writes Fiction, Because So Few Contemporary Novelists Engage With Science.

This Will Be Great Mam's Last Spring. Her Last June Apples. Her Last Fresh Roasting Ears From The Garden.

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.

Don't Wait For The Muse. She Has A Lousy Work Ethic. Writers Just Write.

When You're Given A Brilliant Child You Polish Her And Let Her Shine. Pigs In Heaven

To Think Is Not Always To See.

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.

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.

Cooking Is 80 Percent Confidence, A Skill Best Acquired Starting From When The Apron Strings Wrap Around You Twice.

School Is About Two Parts Abcs To Fifty Parts Where Do I Stand In The Great Pecking Order Of Humankind.

Every Minute With A Child Takes Seven Minutes Off Your Life.

You Can Curse The Dead Or Pray For Them, But Don't Expect Them To Do A Thing For You. They're Far Too Interested In Watching Us, To See What In Heaven's Name We Will Do Next.

A Woman Knows She Can Walk Away From A Pot To Tend Something Else And The Pot Will Go On Boiling; If She Couldn't This World Would End At Once.

If You Never Stepped On Anybody's Toes, You Never Been For A Walk.

We Must Surely Appear To The World As Exactly What We Are: A Nation That Organizes Its Economy Around Consuming Twice As Much Oil As It Produces, And Around The Profligate Wastefulness Of The Wars And Campaigns Required To Defend Such Consumption. In Recent Years We Have Defined Our National Interest Largely In Terms Of The Oil Fields And Pipelines We Need To Procure Fuel.

You Know What The Issue Is? Do You Want To Know? It's What These Guys Have Decided To Call America. They Have The Audacity To Say, 'there, You Sons Of Bitches, Don't Lay A Finger On It. That Is A Finished Product.'" "but Any Country Is Still In The Making. Always. That's Just History, People Have To See That.

Most Of The Girls My Age, Or Even Younger, Have Babies. They Appear Way Too Young To Be Married, Till You Look In Their Eyes. Then You'll See It. Their Eyes Look Happy And Sad At The Same Time, But Unexcited By Anything, Shifting Easily Off To The Side As If They've Already Seen Most Of What There Is. Married Eyes.

Sadness Is More Or Less Like A Head Cold - With Patience, It Passes. Depression Is Like Cancer.

Listen. Slide The Weight From Your Shoulders And Move Forward. You Are Afraid You Might Forget, But You Never Will. You Will Forgive And Remember.

Independence Is A Complex Word In A Foreign Tongue. To Resist Occupation, Whether You're A Nation Or Merely A Woman, You Must Understand The Language Of Your Enemy. Conquest And Liberation And Democrac And Divorce Are Words That Mean Squat, Basically, When You Have Hungry Children And Clothes To Get Out On The Line And It Looks Like Rain.

It Kills You To See Them Grow Up. But I Guess It Would Kill You Quicker If They Didn't.

I Live In A Rural Part Of Virginia Surrounded By Farms And Farmers.

I Personally Am Inclined To Approach [housework] The Way Governments Treat Dissent: Ignore It Until It Revolts.

Will You Explain To Me Why People Encourage Delusional Behaviour In Children, And Medicate It In Adults?

One Of The Very First Things I Figured Out About Life...is That It's Better To Be A Hopeful Person Than A Cynical, Grumpy One, Because You Have To Live In The Same World Either Way, And If You're Hopeful, You Have More Fun.

You See Mother, You Had No Life Of Your Own. They Have No Idea. One Has Only A Life Of One's Own.

It Takes Some Courage To Write Fiction About Politically Controversial Topics. The Dread Is You'll Be Labeled A Political Writer.

Controversial Topics

When We Traded Homemaking For Careers, We Were Implicitly Promised Economic Independence And Worldly Influence. But A Devil Of A Bargain It Has Turned Out To Be In Terms Of Daily Life. We Gave Up The Aroma Of Warm Bread Rising, The Measured Pace Of Nurturing Routines, The Creative Task Of Molding Our Families' Tastes And Zest For Life; We Received In Exchange The Minivan And The Lunchable.

This Story About Good Food Begins In A Quick-stop Convenience Market.

Growing Food Was The First Activity That Gave Us Enough Prosperity To Stay In One Place, Form Complex Social Groups, Tell Our Stories, And Build Our Cities.

Every Life Is Different Because You Passed This Way And Touched History.

I Concentrate On Character, Theme, Language, Structure, Voice. It Actually Surprises Me That No Matter What I Write, People Declare It "intently Political." I'm Just Writing About The World I Know, As It Is. Wounds And Griefs Included.

Culture Is A Slingshot Moved By The Force Of Its Past

If My Setting Is New To A Reader, Or The Concerns Of The Novel Are New, I Hope They Will Learn Something About The World. I Would Like To Say That They Can Trust That What They Do Learn In The Novel Will Be Accurate, Because I Pay A Lot Of Attention To Facts. I Do A Lot Of Research To Make Sure That I'm Not Giving Them, You Know, Blue Moons Of Jupiter. It's Not Science Fiction.

You Can’t Replace People You Love With Other People…but You Can Trust That You’re Not Going To Run Out Of People To Love.

The Wrong Words Are Impossible When There Are No Words.

All Of The Promises Of Politicians, Generals, Madmen, And Crusaders That War Can Create Peace Have Yet To Be Borne Out.

She Kept Swimming Out Into Life Because She Hadn't Yet Found A Rock To Stand On.

The Death Of Something Living Is The Price Of Our Own Survival, And We Pay It Again And Again. We Have No Choice. It Is The One Solemn Promise Every Life On Earth Is Born And Bound To Keep.

The Writing Has Been On The Wall For Some Years Now, But We Are A Nation Illiterate In The Language Of The Wall. The Writing Just Gets Bigger. Something Will Eventually Bring Down The Charming, Infuriating Naïveté Of Americans That Allows Us Our Blithe Consumption And Cheerful Ignorance Of The Secret Ugliness That Bring Us Whatever We Want.

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?

I Live In Southern Appalachia, So I'm Surrounded By People Who Work Very Hard For Barely A Living Wage. It's Particularly Painful That People Are Working The Farms Their Parents And Grandparents Worked But Aren't Living Nearly As Well.

I Know I Have To Write About The Things That Keep Me Awake At Night.

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