“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).”
― Barbara Kingsolver, quote from High Tide in Tucson
“Every one of us is called upon, perhaps many times, to start a new life. A frightening diagnosis, a marriage, a move, loss of a job...And onward full-tilt we go, pitched and wrecked and absurdly resolute, driven in spite of everything to make good on a new shore. To be hopeful, to embrace one possibility after another--that is surely the basic instinct...Crying out: High tide! Time to move out into the glorious debris. Time to take this life for what it is.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, quote from High Tide in Tucson
“Be careful what you give children, for sooner or later you are sure to get it back. ”
― Barbara Kingsolver, quote from High Tide in Tucson
“If you ask me, when something extraordinary shows up in your life in the middle of the night, you give it a name and make it the best home you can.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, quote from High Tide in Tucson
“Art is the antidote that can call us back from the edge of numbness, restoring the ability to feel for another.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, quote from High Tide in Tucson
“Want is a thing that unfurls unbidden like fungus, opening large upon itself, stopless, filling the sky.
But needs, from one day to the next, are few enough to fit in a bucket, with room enough left to rattle like brittle brush in a dry wind.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, quote from High Tide in Tucson
“High fashion has the shelf life of potato salad. And when past its prime, it is similarly deadly.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, quote from High Tide in Tucson
“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.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, quote from High Tide in Tucson
“If humanity survives long enough to understand what he really was, they can dig him up and put on display the grandiose depravity of the twentieth century. ”
― Barbara Kingsolver, quote from High Tide in Tucson
“I hold on to my adopted shore, chanting private vows: wherever I am, let me never forget to distinguish want from need. Let me be a good animal today. Let me dance in the waves of my private tide, the habits of survival and love.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, quote from High Tide in Tucson
“When something extraordinary shows up in your life in the middle of the night, you give it a name and make it the best home you can.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, quote from High Tide in Tucson
“Every one of us is called upon, probably many times, to start a new life. A frightening diagnosis, a marriage, a move, loss of a job... And onward full tilt we go, pitched and wrecked and absurdly resolute, driven in spite of everything to make good on a new shore. To be hopeful, to embrace one possibility after another... Crying out: High tide! Time to move out into the glorious debris. Time to take this life for what it is.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, quote from High Tide in Tucson
“Want is a thing that unfurls unbidden like fungus, opening large upon itself, stopless, filling the sky. But needs, from one day to the next, are few enough to fit in a bucket, with room enough left to rattle like brittlebush in a dry wind.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, quote from High Tide in Tucson
“I knew exactly what I should have said: Be careful what you give children, for sooner or later you are sure to get it back.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, quote from High Tide in Tucson
“You can fool history sometimes, but you can’t fool the memory of your intimates.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, quote from High Tide in Tucson
“we went on record as half-bad musicians having wholehearted lives.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, quote from High Tide in Tucson
Barbara Kingsolver
Born place: in Annapolis, Maryland, The United States
Born date April 8, 1955
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“You must follow me carefully. I shall have to controvert one or two ideas that are almost universally accepted. The geometry, for instance, they taught you at school is founded on a misconception.”
― H.G. Wells, quote from The Time Machine
“It's a very Greek idea, and a very profound one. Beauty is terror. Whatever we call beautiful, we quiver before it. And what could be more terrifying and beautiful, to souls like the Greeks or our own, than to lose control completely? To throw off the chains of being for an instant, to shatter the accident of our mortal selves? Euripides speaks of the Maenads: head thrown I back, throat to the stars, "more like deer than human being." To be absolutely free! One is quite capable, of course, of working out these destructive passions in more vulgar and less efficient ways. But how glorious to release them in a single burst! To sing, to scream, to dance barefoot in the woods in the dead of night, with no more awareness of mortality than an animal! These are powerful mysteries. The bellowing of bulls. Springs of honey bubbling from the ground. If we are strong enough in our souls we can rip away the veil and look that naked, terrible beauty right in the face; let God consume us, devour us, unstring our bones. Then spit us out reborn.”
― Donna Tartt, quote from The Secret History
“Alec isn’t happy,” said Magnus, as if she hadn’t spoken.
“Of course he isn’t,” Isabelle snapped. “Jace—”
“Jace,” said Magnus, and his hands made fists at his sides. Isabelle stared at him. She had always thought that he didn’t mind Jace; liked him, even, once the question of Alec’s affections had been settled. Out loud, she said:
“I thought you were friends.”
“It’s not that,” said Magnus. “There are some people — people the universe seems to have singled out for special destinies. Special favors and special torments. God knows we’re all drawn toward what’s beautiful and broken; I have been, but some people cannot be fixed. Or if they can be, it’s only by love and sacrifice so great it destroys the giver.”
Isabelle shook her head slowly. “You’ve lost me. Jace is our brother, but for Alec — he’s Jace’s parabatai too —”
“I know about parabatai,” said Magnus, his voice rising in pitch. “I’ve known parabatai so close they were almost the same person; do you know what happens, when one of them dies, to the one that’s left—”
“Stop it!” Isabelle clapped her hands over her ears, then lowered them slowly. “How dare you, Magnus Bane,” she said.
“How dare you make this worse than it is —”
“Isabelle.” Magnus’ hands loosened; he looked a little wide-eyed, as if his outburst had startled even him. “I am sorry. I forget, sometimes . . . that with all your self-control and strength, you possess the same vulnerability that Alec does.”
“There is nothing weak about Alec,” said Isabelle.
“No,” said Magnus. “To love as you choose, that takes strength. The thing is, I wanted you here for him. There are things I can’t do for him, can’t give him . . .” For a moment Magnus looked oddly vulnerable. “You have known Jace as long as he has. You can give him understanding I can’t. And he loves you.”
“Of course he loves me. I’m his sister.”
“Blood isn’t love,” said Magnus, and his voice was bitter. “Just ask Clary.”
― Cassandra Clare, quote from City of Lost Souls
“He was one of those rare men who are capable of being fully in love only once in their lives.”
― Pat Conroy, quote from The Prince of Tides
“Letters are just pieces of paper," I said. "Burn them, and what stays in your heart will stay; keep them, and what vanishes will vanish.”
― Haruki Murakami, quote from Norwegian Wood
Seven Sons of Zion
After the Blue Hour
Saving Grace
Vicious
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