After 'The Poisonwood Bible' was published, several people believed that my parents were missionaries, which could not be further from the truth.
Barbara KingsolverWe're animals. We're born like every other mammal and we live our whole lives around disguised animal thoughts.
Barbara Kingsolveryou can't really know the person standing before you, because always there is some missing piece
Barbara KingsolverThere must be limits, somewhere, to the human footprint on this earth. When the whole of the world is reduced to nothing but human product, we will have lost the map that can show us how we got here, and can offer our spirits an answer when we ask why. Surely we are capable of declaring sacred some quarters that we dare not enter or possess.
Barbara KingsolverBeginning 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.
Barbara KingsolverIf 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.
Barbara Kingsolver