If every U.S. citizen ate just one meal a week (any meal) composed of locally and organically raised meats and produce, we would reduce our countryโs oil consumption by over 1.1 million barrels of oil every week. That's not gallons, but barrels. Small changes in buying habits can make big differences. Becoming a less energy-dependent nation may just need to start with a good breakfast.
Barbara KingsolverI 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.
Barbara KingsolverIndependence 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.
Barbara KingsolverThere was a roaring in my ears and I lost track of what they were saying. I believe it was the physical manifestation of unbearable grief.
Barbara KingsolverIt'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.
Barbara KingsolverI 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?
Barbara KingsolverWhen I look out the window, I exhale a prayer of thanks for the color green, for my children's safety, for the simple acts of faith like planting a garden that helped see us through another spring, another summer. And I inhale some kind of promise to protect my kids' hopes and good intentions we began with in this country. Freedom of speech, the protection of diversity - these are the most important ingredients of American civil life and my own survival. If I ever took them for granted, I don't know.
Barbara Kingsolver