Background Image
...
Sugar, It's No Parade But You'll Get Down The Street One Way Or Another, So You'd Just As Well Throw Your Shoulders Back And Pick Up The Pace.
-Barbara Kingsolver
...
Please Wait....
Translating....

Sugar, It's No Parade

Barbara Kingsolver
...
Sugar, It's No Parade But You'll Get Down The Street One Way Or Another, So You'd Just As Well Throw Your Shoulders Back And Pick Up The Pace.

Understanding the Quote: "sugar, it's no parade but you'll get down the street one way..."

This quote by Barbara Kingsolver reflects deeply on the theme of pace. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Pace, Sugar, Way, 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 pace and sugar. 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.

Views: 7
Topic
Pace
Sugar
Way
More From Barbara Kingsolver
I’ve Seen How You Can’t Learn Anything When You’re Trying To Look Like The Smartest Person In The Room.
Inspirational
Learning
Trying
If You Can't Dress Expensive, Dress Memorable.
Memorable
Dresses
Ifs
You See Mother, You Had No Life Of Your Own. They Have No Idea. One Has Only A Life Of One's Own.
Mother
Ideas
No Idea
Life Proceeds, It Enrages. The Untouched Ones Spend Their Luck Without A Thought, Believing They Deserve It.
Believe
Luck
Deserve
That's How It Is: Some People Are Content To Wait Till You Ask, While Others Jump Right In With The Whole Story.
People
Waiting
Stories
In Exchange For His First Taste Of Powdered Milk, Pascal Showed Me A Tree We Could Climb To Find A Bird's Nest. After We Handled And Examined The Pink-skinned Baby Birds, He Popped One Of Them Into His Mouth Like A Jujube. It Seemed To Please Him A Lot. He Offered A Baby Bird To Me, Pantomiming That I Should Eat It. I Understood Perfectly Well What He Meant, But I Refused. He Did Not Seem Disappointed To Have To Eat The Whole Brood Himself.
Baby
Bird
Tree
I Learned To Write By Reading The Kind Of Books I Wished I'd Written.
Book
Reading
Writing
A Flower Is A Plant's Way Of Making Love.
Flower
Making Love
Way
Illusions Mistaken For Truth Are The Pavement Under Our Feet. They Are What We Call Civilization.
Civilization
Feet
Pavement
Something In Me Was Always Watching Life From The Outside, Permanently Obsessed With The Notion Of Belonging Vs. Not-belonging [to A Group]. It Did Not Make For A Happy Childhood, But It Was Excellent Training For A Writer.
Childhood
Training
Groups
... Urban Friends Ask Me How I Can Stand Living Here, 'so Far From Everything?' When I Hear This Question Over The Phone, I'm Usually Looking Out The Window At A Forest, A Running Creek, And A Vegetable Garden, Thinking: Define Everything.
Running
Garden
Thinking
Oh, That River Of Wishes, The Slippery Crocodile Dream Of It, How It Might Have Carried My Body Down Through All The Glittering Sand Bars To The Sea.
Dream
Sea
Rivers
You Force People To Stop Asking Questions, And Before You Know It They Have Auctioned Off The Question Mark, Or Sold It For Scrap. No Boldness. No Good Ideas For Fixing What's Broken In The Land. Because If You Happen To Mention It's Broken, You Are Automatically Disqualified.
Asking Questions
Land
Ideas
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 Control.
Responsibility
Thinking
Guy
I Prefer To Remain Anomalous.
Value Is Not Made Of Money, But A Tender Balance Of Expectation And Longing.
Expectations
Balance
Pajamas
I Never Think That Anything I'm Writing Is Bluntly Political In Any Way. I'm Not Going For Commentary.
Writing
Thinking
Political
Awareness Is Everything. Hallie Once Pointed Out To Me That People Worry A Lot More About The Eternity *after* Their Deaths Than The Eternity That Happened Before They Were Born. But It's The Same Amount Of Infinity, Rolling Out In All Directions From Where We Stand.
People
Worry
Infinity
You Could Love Your Crazy People, Even Admire Them, Instead Of Resenting That They're Not Self-sufficient.
Crazy
Self
People
But Still, I’d Be Darned If I Was Going To Be One Of Those Americans Who Stomp Around Italy Barking Commands In Ever-louder English. I Was Going To Be One Of Those Americans Who Traversed Italy With My Forehead Knit In Concentration, Divining Wordsw From Their Latin Roots And Answering By Wedging French Cognates Into Italian Pronunciations Spliced Onto A Standard Spanish Verb Conjugation.
Latin
Animal
Italian
The Very Least You Can Do In Your Life Is To Figure Out What You Hope For!
Hope
Anticipation
Life Is
Like Daniel She Enteres The Lions' Den, But Lacking Daniel's Pure And Unblemished Soul, Ada Is Spiced With The Flavors Of Vice That Make For A Tasty Meal. Pure And Unblemished Souls Must Taste Very Bland, With An Aftertaste Of Bitterness.
Soul
Vices
Meals
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
If You Want Sweet Dreams, You've Got To Live A Sweet Life.
Dream
Sweet
Want
It's Terrible To Lose Somebody, But It's Also True That Some People Never Have Anybody To Lose, And I Think That's Got To Be So Much Worse.
Thinking
People
Terrible
I Don't Know What Rituals My Kids Will Carry Into Adulthood, Whether They'll Grow Up Attached To Homemade Pizza On Friday Nights, Or The Scent Of Peppers Roasting Over A Fire, Or What. I Do Know That Flavors Work Their Own Ways Under The Skin, Into The Heart Of Longing. Where My Kids Are Concerned I Find Myself Hoping For The Simplest Things: That If Someday They Crave Orchards Where Their Kids Can Climb Into The Branches And Steal Apples, The World Will Have Trees Enough With Arms To Receive Them.
Friday
Growing Up
Kids
April Is The Cruelest Month, T.s. Eliot Wrote, By Which I Think He Meant (among Other Things) That Springtime Makes People Crazy. We Expect Too Much, The World Burgeons With Promises It Can't Keep, All Passion Is Really A Setup, And We're Doomed To Get Our Hearts Broken Yet Again. I Agree, And Would Further Add: Who Cares? Every Spring I Go Out There Anyway, Around The Bend, Unconditionally. ... Come The End Of The Dark Days, I Am More Than Joyful. I'm Nuts.
Crazy
Spring
Passion
Last Time I Talked To Her She Didn't Sound Like Herself. She's Depressed. It's Awful What Happens When People Run Out Of Money. They Start Thinking They're No Good.
Running
Thinking
People
If It's Important, Your Heart Remembers.
Heart
Important
Remember
Solitude Is A Human Presumption. Every Quiet Step Is Thunder To Beetle Life Underfoot, A Tug Of Impalpable Thread On The Web Pulling Mate To Mate And Predator To Prey, A Beginning Or An End. Every Choice Is A World Made New For The Chosen.
Choices
Solitude
World
It Takes Your Sleeping Self Years To Catch Up To Where You Really Are. ... When You Go On A Trip, In Your Dreams You Will Still Be Home. Then After You've Come Home You'll Dream Of Where You Were. It's A Kind Of Jet Lag Of The Consciousness.
Dream
Home
Sleep
You Can Be As Earnest And Ridiculous As You Need To Be, If You Don't Attempt It In Isolation. The Ridiculously Earnest Are Known To Travel In Groups. And They Are Known To Change The World.
Groups
Needs
World
I Think That When People Read Fiction, They're Really Reading For Wisdom. I Am. That's What Most Of Us Really Love. If We Read A Novel That Rocks Our World, It's Because There's Something In It That We Didn't Know Already. Not Just Information But Really Wisdom - Sort Of What To Do With Our Information. And Wisdom Comes From Experience.
Reading
Thinking
Our World
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.
Eye
Simple
Mirrors
Culture Is A Slingshot Moved By The Force Of Its Past
Past
Culture
Slingshots
It Takes Some Courage To Write Fiction About Politically Controversial Topics. The Dread Is You'll Be Labeled A Political Writer.
Writing
Controversial Topics
Political
Fiction And Essays Can Create Empathy For The Theoretical Stranger.
Empathy
Fiction
Stranger
I Don't Understand How Any Good Art Could Fail To Be Political.
Art
Political
Failing
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
We Came From Bethlehem, Georgia Bearing Betty Crocker Cake Mixes Into The Jungle.
Cake
Georgia
Bethlehem
Prayer Had Always Struck Me As More Or Less A Glorified Attempt At A Business Transaction.
Prayer
Transactions
Your Dreams, What You Hope For And All That, It's Not Separate From Your Life. It Grows Right Up Out Of It.
Dream
Grows
Your Dreams
I Lost A Child," She Said, Meeting Lusa's Eyes Directly. "i Thought I Wouldn't Live Through It. But You Do. You Learn To Love The Place Somebody Leaves Behind For You.
Children
Eye
Bereavement
If Someone Does Learn About The World From Reading A Novel Of Mine, That Makes Me Very Happy. It's Probably Not What Brings Me Into The Novel In The First Place - I Usually Am Pulled In By Some Big Question About The World And Human Nature That I'm Not Going To Resolve In The Course Of The Novel. But I'm Very Devoted To Getting My Facts Straight.
Reading
Doe
World
In My Own Worst Seasons I've Come Back From The Colorless World Of Despair By Forcing Myself To Look Hard, For A Long Time, At A Single Glorious Thing: A Flame Of Red Geranium Outside My Bedroom Window. And Then Another: My Daughter In A Yellow Dress. And Another: The Perfect Outline Of A Full, Dark Sphere Behind The Crescent Moon. Until I Learned To Be In Love With My Life Again. Like A Stroke Victim Retraining New Parts Of The Brain To Grasp Lost Skills, I Have Taught Myself Joy, Over And Over Again(15).
Life
Daughter
Dark
God Is Frightful, God Is Great--you Pick. I Choose This: God Is In The Details, The Completely Unnecessary Miracles Sometimes Tossed Up As Stars To Guide Us. They Are The Promise Of Good Fortune In A Cloudless Day, And The Animals In The Clouds; Look Hard Enough, And You'll See Them. Don't Ask If They're Real.
Stars
Real
Animal
Do You Think Its Possible To Live Without Wanting To Put Your Name On Your Paintings? To Belong To A Group So Securely You Don't Need To Rise Above It?
Thinking
Names
Groups
The Gods You Do Not Pay Are The Ones That Can Curse You Best.
Pay
Curse
Feeling That Morality Has Nothing To Do With The Way You Use The Resources Of The World Is An Idea That Can't Persist Much Longer. If It Does, Then We Won't.
Ideas
Feelings
Environmental
Restraint Equals Indulgence
Restraint
Indulgence
In The Day-to-day, Farm Work Is Stress Relief For Me. At The End Of The Day, I Love Having This Other Career - My Anti-job - That Keeps Me In Shape And Gives Me Control Over A Vegetal Domain.
Jobs
Stress
Careers
Write A Nonfiction Book, And Be Prepared For The Legion Of Readers Who Are Going To Doubt Your Fact. But Write A Novel, And Get Ready For The World To Assume Every Word Is True.
Book
Writing
Doubt
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 Work' And It Has Simply Come Back Stamped 'not At This Address'. Just Keep Looking For The Right Address.
Writing
Editors
Appreciate
This Is What It Means To Be Alone: Everyone Is Connected To Everyone Else, Their Bodies Are A Bright Liquid Life Flowing Around You, Sharing A Single Heart That Drives Them To Move All Together. If The Shark Comes They Will All Escape, And Leave You To Be Eaten.
Moving
Heart
Mean
Of The Two Hundred Bones In The Human Body, More Than A Quarter Are In The Foot. It Is A More Complicated Instrument Than An Automobile Transmission, And It Is Treated With Far Less Consideration.
Two
Feet
Body
Height Isn't Something You Can Have And Just Let Be, Like Nice Teeth Or Naturally Curly Hair. People Have This Idea You Have To Put It To Use, Playing Basketball, For Example, Or Observing The Weather Up There. If You Are A Girl, They Feel A Particular Need To Point Your Height Out To You, As If You Might Not Have Noticed.
Basketball
Girl
Nice
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
The Bad Thing About Small-town Life Is That Everybody Knows Your Business...i Suppose That Is My Central Obsession. What We Owe To Society, What We Owe To Ourselves.
Obsession
A Mother's Body Remembers Her Babies-the Folds Of Soft Flesh, The Softly Furred Scalp Against Her Nose. Each Child Has It's Own Entreaties To Body And Soul.
Mother
Baby
Children
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 Understand A Tender, Unprejudiced Jesus. But I Could Never Quite Feature The Two Of Them Living In The Same House. You Wind Up Walking On Eggshells, Never Knowing Which... Is At Home At The Moment.
Jesus
Home
Views
People Read Books To Escape The Uncertainties Of Life.
Book
People
Uncertainty Of Life
...whatever Is Lovely, Whatever Is Gracious, If There Is Anything Worthy Of Praise, Think About These Things. And Peace Will Be With You.
Thinking
Lovely
Praise
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.
Running
People
This Story About Good Food Begins In A Quick-stop Convenience Market.
Stories
Good Food
Convenience
...prodigal Summer, The Season Of Extravagant Procreation. It Could Wear Out Everything In Its Path With Its Passionate Excesses, But Nothing Alive With Wings Or A Heart Or A Seed Curled Into Itself In The Ground Could Resist Welcoming It Back When It Came.
Summer
Heart
Wings
There Are Days When I Am Envious Of My Hens: When I Hunger For A Purpose As Perfect And Sure As A Single Daily Egg.
Life
Eggs
Perfect
I Had Decided Early On That If I Couldn’t Dress Elegant, I’d Dress Memorable.
Memorable
Dresses
Decided
The Most Important Part Of A Story Is The Piece Of It You Don't Know.
Important
Pieces
Stories
People Ask Without Wanting To Know.
People
Knows
Asks
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
Running
Memories
Believe
Lies Are Infinite In Number, And The Truth So Small And Singular.
Lying
Numbers
Infinite
In A World As Wrong As This One, All We Can Do Is Make Things As Right As We Can.
Life
World
Can Do
Cooking Is 80 Percent Confidence, A Skill Best Acquired Starting From When The Apron Strings Wrap Around You Twice.
Animal
Vegetables
Skills
Silence Has Many Advantages…i Write And Draw In My Notebook And I Read Anything I Please.
Notebook
Writing
Silence
What We End Up Calling History Is A Kind Of Knife, Slicing Down Through Time. A Few People Are Hard Enough To Bend Its Edge. But Most Won't Even Stand Close To The Blade. I'm One Of Those. We Don't Bend Anything.
Knives
People
Calling
Eaters Must Understand, How We Eat Determines How The World Is Used.
World
Used
Determine
No Kind Of Bomb Ever Built Will Extinguish Hatred.
Hatred
Bombs
Kind
The Friend Who Holds Your Hand And Says The Wrong Thing Is Made Of Dearer Stuff Than The One Who Stays Away.
Friendship
Best Friend
Birthday
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.
Childhood
Religion
Gardening
Friends, There Is Nothing Like Your Own Family To Make You Appreciate Strangers!
Appreciate
Stranger
Morning Always Comes.
Morning
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
Mr. Shepherd, Ye Cannot Stop A Bad Thought From Coming Into Your Head. But Ye Need Not Pull Up A Chair And Bide It Sit Down." - Mrs. Brown
Shepherds
Needs
Pull Ups
We Tap Our Toes To Chaste Love Songs About The Silvery Moon Without Recognizing Them As Hymns To Copulation.
Song
Moon
Hymns
Don’t Try To Make Life A Mathematics Problem With Yourself In The Center And Everything Coming Out Equal. When You’re Good, Bad Things Can Still Happen. And If You’re Bad, You Can Still Be Lucky.
Life
Trying
Lucky
What Life Can I Live That Will Let Me Breathe In And Out And Love Somebody Or Something And Not Run Off Screaming Into The Woods?
Running
And Love
Woods
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
My Worst Nightmare Is Being Stuck Somewhere With Nothing To Read.
Worst Nightmares
Nightmare
Stuck
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
It Feels Strange To Me To Be Living In A Box, Hiding From The Steadying Influence Of The Moon; Wearing The Hide Of A Cow, Which Is Supposed To Be Dyed To Match God-knows-what, On My Feet; Making Promises Over The Telephone About Things I Will Do At A Precise Hour Next Year.
Moon
Years
Feet
This Forest Eats Itself And Lives Forever.
Forever
Forests
Stumps
Arterial-plaque Specials That Save Minutes Now Can Cost Years, Later On.
Years
Cost
Minutes
All Of The Promises Of Politicians, Generals, Madmen, And Crusaders That War Can Create Peace Have Yet To Be Borne Out.
War
Promise
Politician
The Arc Of History Is Longer Than Human Vision. It Bends. We Abolished Slavery, We Granted Universal Suffrage. We Have Done Hard Things Before. And Every Time It Took A Terrible Fight Between People Who Could Not Imagine Changing The Rules, And Those Who Said, 'we Already Did. We Have Made The World New.' The Hardest Part Will Be To Convince Yourself Of The Possibilities, And Hang On.
Fighting
People
Vision
For Scientists, Reality Is Not Optional.
Reality
Scientist
Optional
You Know Things Are Bad When A Woman Without Any Legs And Who Recently Lost Two Of Her Own Kids Feels Sorry For You.
Sorry
Kids
Two
People Love To Read About Sins And Errors, But Not Their Own.
Errors
People
Sin
...our Best Task Is To Move Forward Without Insisting Others Slide Backward.
Moving
Tasks
Slides
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
Beginning A Novel Is Always Hard. It Feels Like Going Nowhere. I Always Have To Write At Least 100 Pages That Go Into The Trashcan Before It Finally Begins To Work. It's Discouraging, But Necessary To Write Those Pages. I Try To Consider Them Pages -100 To Zero Of The Novel.
Zero
Writing
Trying
I Know I'm A Rare Person, A Trained Scientist Who Writes Fiction, Because So Few Contemporary Novelists Engage With Science.
Writing
Rare Person
Novelists
My Way Of Finding A Place In This World Is To Write One.
Writing
World
Way
I'm Of A Fearsome Mind To Throw My Arms Around Every Living Librarian Who Crosses My Path, On Behalf Of The Souls They Never Knew They Saved.
Soul
Mind
Library
Ah, The Mysterious Croak. Here Today, Gone Tomorrow. It's The Best Reason I Can Think Of To Throw Open The Blinds And Risk Belief. Right Now, This Minute, Time To Move Out Into The Grief And Glory. High Tide.
Grief
Moving
Thinking
Sometimes The Strength Of Motherhood Is Greater Than Natural Laws.
Family
Inspiring
Mothers Day
Everything Truly Important Is Washable.
Important
Housework
Mom Is Losing, No Doubt, Because Our Vegetables Have Come To Lack Two Features Of Interest: Nutrition And Flavor. Storage And Transport Take Predictable Tolls On The Volatile Plant Compounds That Subtly Add Up To Taste And Food Value. Breeding To Increase Shelf Life Also Has Tended To Decrease Palatability. Bizarre As It Seems, We've Accepted A Tradeoff That Amounts To: "give Me Every Vegetable In Every Season, Even If It Tastes Like A Cardboard Picture Of Its Former Self."
Mom
Self
Vegetables
Parenting Is Something That Happens Mostly While You're Thinking Of Something Else.
Thinking
Happens
But Children Robbed Of Love Will Dwell On Magic.
Children
Magic
A Writer's Occupational Hazard: I Think Of Eavesdropping As Minding My Business.
Thinking
Hazards
Busybodies
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
The Talkers Are Rising Above The Thinkers.
Talking
Rising
Rise Above
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.
Believe
Heart
Giving
Every Minute With A Child Takes Seven Minutes Off Your Life.
Children
Seven
Minutes
(on Asparagus) Europeans Of The Renaissance Swore By It As An Aphrodisiac, And The Church Banned It From Nunneries.
Church
Asparagus
Aphrodisiac
He Needs To Go Rub His Soul Against Life.
Soul
Needs
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.
People
Grandparent
Southern
I Didn't Study Writing In School, I Studied Biology As An Undergraduate And Graduate Student. So I Think That I Write Fiction In The Scientific Way. I Love Invention, Obviously; I Love Creation Of Character. But I Do Feel Very Rooted In The Real World, Even In The Way That I Create Characters.
Real
Writing
School
If You're Standing In The Manure Pile, It's Somebody's Job To Mention The Stink.
Jobs
Stink
Standing
Finally, Cooking Is Good Citizenship. It's The Only Way To Get Serious About Putting Locally Raised Foods Into Your Diet, Which Keeps Farmlands Healthy And Grocery Money In The Neighborhood.
Animal
Vegetables
Miracle
The Daily Work - That Goes On, It Adds Up.
Inspirational Life
Add
Goes On
Be Careful What You Give Children, For Sooner Or Later You Are Sure To Get It Back.
Children
Giving
Be Careful
It's A Great Freedom To Give Up On Love, And Get On With Everything Else.
Giving Up
Giving
Giving Up On Love
I Know People. Most Have No Earthly Notion Of The Price Of A Snow-white Conscience.
White
People
Snow
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.
Insomnia
Light
Doors
Now I'm Starting To Think He Wasn't Supposed To Be My Whole Life, He Was Just This Doorway To Me.
Thinking
Doorways
Starting
What Keeps You Going Isn't Some Fine Destination But Just The Road You're On, And The Fact That You Know How To Drive. You Keep Your Eyes Open, You See This Damned-to-hell World You Got Born Into, And You Ask Yourself, 'what Life Can I Live That Will Let Me Breathe In & Out And Love Somebody Or Something And Not Run Off Screaming Into The Woods?
Running
Eye
World
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
Perhaps Growing Up Meant We Put Our Knives Away And Feigned Ignorance Of The Damage.
Growing Up
Ignorance
Knives
Everything You're Sure Is Right Can Be Wrong In Another Place.
Travel
I Did It To Win Love, And To Prove Myself Capable. Not To Move Mountains. In My Opinions, Mountains Don't Move. They Only Look Changed When You Look Down On Them From Great Height.
Moving
Winning
Mountain
The Power Is In The Balance: We Are Our Injuries, As Much As We Are Our Successes.
Balance
Injury
Poetry Feels Like A Country I Visit Without A Passport, Where I Look Around Furtively, Grab Hold Of Something Precious, And Try To Smuggle It Back Across The Border. Any Poem I Get Written Down Feels Like Contraband To Me.
Country
Trying
Borders
Misunderstanding Is My Cornerstone. It's Everyone's, Come To Think Of It. Illusions Mistaken For Truth Are The Pavement Under Our Feet.
Thinking
Feet
Pavement
From My Earliest Memory, Times Of Crisis Seemed To End Up With Women In The Kitchen Preparing Food For Men.
Memories
Men
Kitchen
He Was My Father. I Own Half His Genes, And All Of His History. Believe This: The Mistakes Are Part Of The Story. I Am Born Of A Man Who Believed He Could Tell Nothing But The Truth, While He Set Down For All Time The Poisonwood Bible.
Father
Mistake
Believe
You Don't Think You'll Live Past It And You Don't Really. The Person You Were Is Gone. But The Half Of You That's Still Alive Wakes Up One Day And Takes Over Again.
Grief
Past
Thinking
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
Balance
Trying
Ada
Every Betrayal Contains A Perfect Moment, A Coin Stamped Heads Or Tails With Salvation On The Other Side.
Betrayal
Heads Or Tails
Perfect
I Write Every Moment That Is Humanly Possible. I Write Every Day And Every Night. The Only Discipline I Lack Is The Discipline Is To Quit.
Writing
Night
Discipline
Be Still, And The World Is Bound To Turn Herself Inside Out To Entertain You. Everywhere You Look, Joyful Noise Is Clanging To Drown Out Quiet Desperation.
Patience
Looks
World
But Anatole Said Suddenly, 'don't Expect God's Protection In Places Beyond God's Dominion. It Will Only Make You Feel Punished. I'm Warning You. When Things Go Bad, You Will Blame Yourself.' 'what Are You Telling Me?' 'i Am Telling You What I'm Telling You. Don't Try To Make Life A Mathematics Problem With Yourself In The Center And Everything Coming Out Equal. When You Are Good, Bad Things Can Still Happen. And If You Are Bad, You Can Still Be Lucky.
Trying
Lucky
Warning
...nothing Momentous Comes In This World Unless It Comes On The Shoulders Of Kindness.
Kindness
World
This World
Mother Could Go For One Year Without Food, But Not One Day Without Her Lip Sticks.
Mother
Years
One Day
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.
Zest
Careers
Creative
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
Planning Complex, Beautiful Meals And Investing One's Heart And Time In Their Preparation Is The Opposite Of Self-indulgence. Kitchen-based Family Gatherings Are Process-oriented, Cooperative, And In The Best Of Worlds, Nourishing And Soulful. A Lot Of Calories Get Used Up Before Anyone Sits Down To Consume. But More Importantly, A Lot Of Talk Happens First, News Exchanged, Secrets Revealed Across Generations, Paths Cleared With A Touch On The Arm. I Have Given And Received Some Of My Life's Most Important Hugs With Those Big Oven-mitt Potholders On Both Hands.
Beautiful
Heart
Self
Being A Novelist And Being A Mother Have Exactly Coincided In My Life: The Call From My Agent Saying That I Had A Contract For My First Novel - That Was On My Answering Phone Message When I Got Back From The Hospital With My First Child.
Mother
Children
Phones
The Very Least You Can Do In Your Life Is To Figure Out What You Hope For. And The Most You Can Do Is Live Inside That Hope. Not Admire It From A Distance But Live Right In It, Under Its Roof.
Dream
Hope
Life Lesson
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
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.
Song
Animal
Vegetables
Anybody Can Get Worked Up, If They Have The Intention. It's Peacefulness That Is Hard To Come By On Purpose.
Purpose
Intention
Peacefulness
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's A Sort Of 'us Versus Them' Situation. They're Easy To Poke Fun At.
Country
Fun
Southern
Literature Duplicates The Experience Of Living In A Way That Nothing Else Can, Drawing You So Fully Into Another Life That You Temporarily Forget You Have One Of Your Own. That Is Why You Read It, And Might Even Sit Up In Bed Till Early Dawn, Throwing Your Whole Tomorrow Out Of Whack, Simply To Find Out What Happens To Some People Who, You Know Perfectly Well, Are Made Up.
Writing
Drawing
People
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
It's Very Important To Distinguish Between Innocence And Naivete. The Innocent Do Not Deserve To Be The Victims Of Violence. But Only The Naive Refuse To Think About The Origins Of Violence And To Pursue The Possibility That The Genesis Of That Hatred Could Be Addressed.
Thinking
Hatred
Important
No Reporter Worth His Buttons Will Let The Facts Intrude On A Good Story.
Buttons
Stories
Facts
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
You Always Need That Spark Of Imagination. Sometimes I'm Midway Through A Book Before It Happens. However, I Don't Wait For The Muse To Descend, I Sit Down Every Day And I Work When I'm Not Delivering Lambs On The Farm.
Book
Imagination
Waiting
Pure And Unblemished Souls Must Taste Very Bland, With An Aftertaste Of Bitterness.
Soul
Taste
Bitterness
I Do My Best Work If I Think About What It Is I Have To Offer.
Thinking
Best Work
Offers
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.
Choices
Survival
Promise
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.
Positive
Fun
Hopeful
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.
Roots
Verbs
Prose
To Be Hopeful, To Embrace One Possibility After Another--that Is Surely The Basic Instinct. Baser Even Than Hate, The Thing With Teeth, Which Can Be Stilled With A Tone Of Voice Or Stunned By Beauty. If The Whole World Of The Living Has To Turn On The Single Point Of Remaining Alive, That Pointed Endurance Is The Poetry Of Hope. The Thing With Feathers.
Hate
Voice
Hopeful
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.
War
Years
Oil
Come To Think Of It, Just About Every Tool Was Shaped Like Either A Weenie Or A Pistol, Depending On Your Point Of View.
Men
Thinking
Views
The Truth Needs So Little Rehearsal.
Truth
Honesty
Needs
I Could Never Work Out Whether We Were To View Religion As A Life-insurance Policy Or A Life Sentence.
Life
Views
Work Out
Our Childhood Had Passed Over Into History Overnight. The Transition Was Unnoticed By Anyone But Ourselves.
Childhood
Transition
Unnoticed
Vengeance Does Not Subtract Any Numbers From The Equation Of Murder; It Only Adds Them.
Revenge
Numbers
Doe
You Think You're The Foreigner Here, And I'm The American, And I Just Look The Other Way While The President Or Somebody Sends Down This And That . . . To Torture People With. But Nobody Asked My Permission, Okay? Sometimes I Feel Like I'm A Foreigner, Too.
Thinking
People
President
Don't Try To Figure Out What Other People Want To Hear From You; Figure Out What You Have To Say.
Writing
Creativity
People
...trust In Creation Which Is Made Fresh Daily And Doesn’t Suffer In Translation. This God Does Not Work In Especially Mysterious Ways. The Sun Here Rises And Sets At Six Exactly. A Caterpillar Becomes A Butterfly. A Bird Raises Its Brood In The Forest And A Greenheart Tree Will Only Grow From A Greenheart Seed. He Brings Drought Sometimes Followed By Torrential Rains And If These Things Aren’t Always What I Had In Mind, They Aren’t My Punishment Either. They’re Rewards, Let’s Say For The Patience Of A Seed.
Rain
Butterfly
Punishment
This Is How Americans Think. You Believe That If Something Terrible Happens To Someone, They Must Have Deserved It.
Believe
Thinking
United States
Thanks For This Day, For All Birds Safe In Their Nests, For Whatever This Is, For Life.
Bird
Safe
Nests
When You're Given A Brilliant Child You Polish Her And Let Her Shine. Pigs In Heaven
Children
Pigs
Heaven
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
The First Steps Toward Stewardship Are Awareness, Appreciation, And The Selfish Desire To Have The Things Around For Our Kids To See. Presumably The Unselfish Motives Will Follow As We Wise Up.
Wise
Appreciation
Selfish
When People Are Frightened About Going Hungry And Paying Their Mortgages, A Scarcity Model Begins To Prevail; They Fear Someone Else Will Get Their Piece Of The Pie.
Pie
People
Scarcity
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.
Mother
Running
Jobs
There Are Always More Questions. Science As A Process Is Never Complete. It Is Not A Foot Race, With A Finish Line.... People Will Always Be Waiting At A Particular Finish Line: Journalists With Their Cameras, Impatient Crowds Eager To Call The Race, Astounded To See The Scientists Approach, Pass The Mark, And Keep Running. It's A Common Misunderstanding, He Said. They Conclude There Was No Race. As Long As We Won't Commit To Knowing Everything, The Presumption Is We Know Nothing.
Running
Race
Knowing Everything
The Novel Is Inherently A Political Instrument, Regardless Of Its Subject. It Invites You - More Than Invites You, Induces You - To Live Inside Another Person's Skin. It Creates Empathy. And That's The Antidote To Bigotry. The Novel Doesn't Just Tell You About Another Life, Which Is What A Newspaper Would Do. It Makes You Live Another Life, Inhabit Another Perspective. And That's Very Important.
Perspective
Empathy
Political
I Don't Bring Expectations To Any Of My Books. I Don't Tell People What To Do. I Want To Invite Them In.
Book
People
Expectations
I've About Decided That's The Main Thing That Separates Happy People From The Other People: The Feeling That You're A Practical Item, With A Use, Like A Sweater Or A Socket Wrench.
Sweaters
People
Feelings
Plants Do Everything Animals Do, But Slowly. They Migrate, Communicate, Deceive, Stalk Their Food And, With An Ostentation Of Styles And Perfumes To Put The Animal Kingdom To Shame, They Make Love. It's Just That Catching Them In Flagrante Delicto Might Require Time-lapse Photography.
Photography
Animal
Making Love
Our House Is Like An Empty Cigarette Packet, Lying Around Reminding You What's Not In It.
Lying
House
Empty
From The Fallen Tree Everybody Makes Firewood.
Tree
Trouble
Fallen
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
If The Lord Hasn't Got A Boyfriend Lined Up For Me To Marry, That's His Business.
Lord
Ifs
Before That I Was A Scientist. I Did Research In Population Biology. And That's What I Always Go Back To, It Helps Me To Remember That People Are Not The End Of The World, Although We May Be When It Comes To It. We're Just One Species Among Millions In This World.
People
Population
Research
A Breeze Shook Rain Out Of New Leaves Onto Their Hair, But In Their Pursuit Of Eternity They Never Noticed The Chill.
Rain
Hair
Chill
Hope Is A Renewable Option: If You Run Out Of It At The End Of The Day, You Get To Start Over In The Morning.
Inspiring
Running
Dream
I Considered Her My Ally, Because, Like Me, She Was Imperfect.
Allies
Imperfect
Like Me
If You're Writing, You're A Writer. If You're Talking About It Or Thinking About It, I'm Not So Sure. Writing Is Ninety-eight Percent Work And Two Percent Magic.
Writing
Thinking
Eight
There's A Graveyard In Northern France Where All The Dead Boys From D-day Are Buried. The White Crosses Reach From One Horizon To The Other. I Remember Looking It Over And Thinking It Was A Forest Of Graves. But The Rows Were Like This, Dizzying, Diagonal, Perfectly Straight, So After All It Wasn't A Forest But An Orchard Of Graves. Nothing To Do With Nature, Unless You Count Human Nature.
War
Sacrifice
Boys
That Was When We Smelled The Rain. It Was So Strong It Seemed Like More Than Just A Smell. When We Stretched Out Our Hands We Could Practically Feel It Rising Up From The Ground. I Don’t Know How A Person Could Ever Describe That Scent.
Strong
Rain
Hands
It's Frightening When Things You Love Appear Suddenly Changed From What You Have Always Known.
Changed
Things You Love
Frightening
Honk If You Love Jesus, Text While Driving If You Want To Meet Up.
Jesus
Want
Driving
When You Pick Up A Novel From The Bed Side Table, You Put Down Your Own Life At The Same Time And You Become Another Person For The Duration.
Sides
Bed
Tables
Trending Author
Anthony Horowitz
Chris Colfer
Shepard Smith
Gerry Mulligan
Helena Christensen
Jared Diamond
Category
Information