Barbara Kingsolver

"A wife is the earth itself, changing hands, bearing scars."

"Her body moved with the frankness that comes from solitary habits. But solitude is only a human presumption. Every quiet step is thunder to beetle life underfoot; every choice is a world made new for the chosen. All secrets are witnessed."

"The march of human progress seemed mainly a matter of getting over that initial shock of being here."

"I also love to travel, and am especially thrilled to see different tracts of wilderness that are still thriving on our planet. A lot of us spend our best efforts trying to reclaim what’s damaged, imagining and working to fend off the dire outcomes of humanity’s mistakes. To spend our hearts without filling them up again is a dangerous economy. So I go to the wilds to repair my soul. Earlier this year I spent several weeks in , a vast, unpeopled land where I walked trails among s, s, and s. I watched pumas eating guanacos. A wilderness big enough to support a healthy population of 200-pound predators: that is a wonder."

"At some point in my life Id honestly hoped love would rescue me from the cold, drafty castle I lived in. But at another point, much earlier I think, Id 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."

"He was wounded. I suppose some sharp thing in me wanted to sting him, for making me need him now. After hed once cut me to the edge of what a soul will bear. But that was senseless.... I looked at this grown-up Loyd and tried to make sense of him, seeing clearly that he was too sweet to survive around me. I would go to my grave expecting the weapon in the empty hand."

"Libraries are the one American institution you shouldnt rip off."

"Every minute with a child takes seven minutes off your life."

"It kills you to see them grow up. But I guess it would kill you quicker if they didnt."

"Were animals. Were born like every other mammal and we live our whole lives around disguised animal thoughts."

"A flock is nothing but the put-together of all your past choices."

"Even the most recalcitrant climate scientists agree now, the place is heating up. pretty much every one of the lot. Unless some other outcome is written on the subject line of his paycheck. [...] If you were here to get information, Tina, you would not be standing in my laboratory telling me what scientists think."