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Quote by Barbara Kingsolver

“It's the same struggle for each of us, and the same path out: the utterly simple, infinitely wise ultimately defiant act of loving one thing and then another, loving our way back to life... Maybe being perfectly happy is not really the point. Maybe that is only some modern American dream of the point, while the truer measure of humanity is the distance we must travel in our lives, time and again, "twixt two extremes of passion--joy and grief," as Shakespeare put it. However much I've lost, what remains to me is that I can still speak to name the things I love. And I can look for safety in giving myself away to the world's least losable things.”

Quote by Barbara Kingsolver

Work

Small Wonder

This book delves into the intricate relationship between humans and the natural world, offering a contemplative look at the wonders of the environment. more

Author

Barbara Kingsolver
Barbara Kingsolver

Barbara Kingsolver is an American novelist known for her insightful social commentary and rich literary imagination. Her works often explore themes of environmental protection, social justice, and women's issues, and have gained widespread popularity. Born on April 8, 1955, in Arkansas, USA, Kingsolver grew up in Arkansas and Mexico, and later earned a BA in literature from Amherst College and an MA in comparative literature from Columbia University. more

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“What you have made me see,' answered the Lady, 'is as plain as the sky, but I never saw it before. Yet is has happened every day. One goes into the forest to pick food and already the thought of one fruit rather than another has grown up in one’s mind. Then, may it be, one finds a different fruit and not the fruit one thought of. One joy was expected and another is given. But this I had never noticed before–that the very moment of the finding there is in the mind a kind of thrusting back, or setting aside. The picture of the fruit you have not found is still, for a moment, before you. And if you wished–if it were possible to wish–you could keep it there. You could send your soul after the good you had expected, instead of turning it to the good you had got. You could refuse the real good; you could make the real fruit taste insipid by thinking of the other.”

“Modern man is full of platitudes about living life to its fullest, with catchy keychain phrases and little plaques for kitchen walls. But if you've never retreated to the solitude of a dark room and listened to Beethoven's Ninth from start to finish, you know nothing. For music is a transcendental exploration of human emotion and experience, the very fabric of life in its purest form. And the Ninth our greatest musical achievement.”