Quotes from The Bean Trees

“There is no point treating a depressed person as though she were just feeling sad, saying, 'There now, hang on, you'll get over it.' Sadness is more or less like a head cold- with patience, it passes. Depression is like cancer.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, quote from The Bean Trees

“In a world as wrong as this one, all we can do is make things as right as we can.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, quote from The Bean Trees

“There were two things about Mama. One is she always expected the best out of me. And the other is that then no matter what I did, whatever I came home with, she acted like it was the moon I had just hung up in the sky and plugged in all the stars. Like I was that good.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, quote from The Bean Trees

“A human being can be good or bad or right or wrong, maybe. But how can you say a person is illegal? You just can't. That's all there is to it.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, quote from The Bean Trees

“Sadness is more or less like a head cold - with patience, it passes. Depression is like cancer.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, quote from The Bean Trees

“I had decided early on that if I couldn’t dress elegant, I’d dress memorable.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, quote from The Bean Trees

“It'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 Kingsolver, quote from The Bean Trees

“Tortolita, let me tell you a story,” Estevan said. “This is a South American, wild Indian story about heaven and hell.” Mrs. Parsons made a prudish face, and Estevan went on. “If you go visit hell, you will see a room like this kitchen. There is a pot of delicious stew on the table, with the most delicate aroma you can imagine. All around, people sit, like us. Only they are dying of starvation. They are jibbering and jabbering,” he looked extra hard at Mrs. Parsons, “but they cannot get a bit of this wonderful stew God has made for them. Now, why is that?”

“Because they’re choking? For all eternity?” Lou Ann asked. Hell, for Lou Ann, would naturally be a place filled with sharp objects and small round foods.

“No,” he said. “Good guess, but no. They are starving because they only have spoons with very long handles. As long as that.” He pointed to the mop, which I had forgotten to put away. “With these ridiculous, terrible spoons, the people in hell can reach into the pot but they cannot put the food in their mouths. Oh, how hungry they are! Oh, how they swear and curse each other!” he said, looking again at Virgie. He was enjoying this.

“Now,” he went on, “you can go and visit heaven. What? You see a room just like the first one, the same table, the same pot of stew, the same spoons as long as a sponge mop. But these people are all happy and fat.”

“Real fat, or do you mean just well-fed?” Lou Ann asked.

“Just well-fed,” he said. “Perfectly, magnificently well-fed, and very happy. Why do you think?”

He pinched up a chunk of pineapple in his chopsticks, neat as you please, and reached all the way across the table to offer it to Turtle. She took it like a newborn bird.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, quote from The Bean Trees

“That was when we smelled the rain. It was so strong it seemed like more than just a smell. When we stretched out our hands we could practically feel it rising up from the ground. I don’t know how a person could ever describe that scent.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, quote from The Bean Trees

“You're asking yourself, Can I give this child the best possible upbringing and keep her out of harm's way her whole life long? The answer is no, you can't. But nobody else can either. Not a state home, that's for sure. For heaven's sake, the best they can do is turn their heads while the kids learn to pick locks and snort hootch, and then try to keep them out of jail. Nobody can protect a child from the world. That's why it's the wrong thing to ask, if you're really trying to make a decision."
So what's the right thing to ask?"
Do I want to try? Do I think it would be interesting, maybe even enjoyable in the long run, to share my life with this kid and give her my best effort and maybe, when all's said and done, end up with a good friend.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, quote from The Bean Trees

“The very least you can do in your life is to figure out what you hope for. The most you can do is live inside that hope, running down its hallways, touching the walls on both sides.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, quote from The Bean Trees

“I’ve been thinking about that. About how your kids aren’t really yours, they’re just these people that you try to keep an eye on, and hope you’ll all grow up someday to like each other and still be in one piece.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, quote from The Bean Trees

“You think you're the foreigner here, and I'm the American, and I just look the other way while the President or somebody sends down this and that . . . to torture people with. But nobody asked my permission, okay? Sometimes I feel like I'm a foreigner, too.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, quote from The Bean Trees

“Mi'ija, in a world as wrong as this one, all we can do is to make things as right as we can.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, quote from The Bean Trees

“Whatever you want the most, it’s going to be the worst thing for you.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, quote from The Bean Trees

“It was hard to feel the remotest sympathy for any of the different fools she'd been. As opposed to the fool she was being now. People hang on to that one, she thought: the fool they are right now.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, quote from The Bean Trees

“Mama always said barefoot and pregnant was not my style. She knew.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, quote from The Bean Trees

“So one time when I was working in this motel one of the toilets leaked and I had to replace the flapper ball. Here’s what it said on the package; I kept it till I knew it by heart: ‘Please Note. Parts are included for all installations, but no installation requires all of the parts.’ That’s kind of my philosophy about men. I don’t think there’s an installation out there that could use all of my parts.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, quote from The Bean Trees

“I have been afraid of putting air in a tire ever since I saw a tractor tire blow up and throw Newt Hardbine's father over the top of the Standard Oil sign.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, quote from The Bean Trees

“That means you're my kid," I explained, "and I'm your mother, and nobody can say it isn't so.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, quote from The Bean Trees

“We do have some strong traditions of community in the United States, but it’s interesting to me that our traditionally patriotic imagery in this country celebrates the individual, the solo flier, independence. We celebrate Independence Day; we don’t celebrate We Desperately Rely on Others Day. Oh, I guess that’s Mother’s Day [laughter]. It does strike me that our great American mythology tends to celebrate separate achievement and separateness, when in fact nobody does anything alone.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, quote from The Bean Trees

“I never could figure out why men thought they could impress a woman by making the world out to be such a big dangerous deal. I mean, we've got to live in the exact same world every damn day of the week, don't we?”
― Barbara Kingsolver, quote from The Bean Trees

“When I was Turtle’s age I had never had anyone or anything important taken from me. I still hadn’t. Maybe I hadn’t started out with a whole lot, but pretty nearly all of it was still with me.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, quote from The Bean Trees

“There is no point in treating a depressed person as though she were just feeling sad, saying, There now, hang on, you’ll get over it. Sadness is more or less like a head cold—with patience, it passes. Depression is like cancer.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, quote from The Bean Trees

“Do you know, I spent the first half of my life avoiding motherhood and tires, and now I’m counting them as blessings?”
― Barbara Kingsolver, quote from The Bean Trees

“She made it plain that her fondest wish was to have a grandbaby. Whenever fat Irene would pick up the baby, which was not too often, Mrs. Hoge would declare, "Irene, you don't know how becoming that looks." As if someone ought to have a kid because it looked good on them.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, quote from The Bean Trees

“If people really gave it full consideration, I mean, like if you could return a baby after thirty days’ examination like one of those Time-Life books, then I figure the entire human species would go extinct in a month’s time.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, quote from The Bean Trees

“A disappointed-looking Jesus eyed her from the wall...Look, look, her steps called out, here is a red headed sinner on the move.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, quote from The Bean Trees

“always tried to be positive with her, although I’d learned”
― Barbara Kingsolver, quote from The Bean Trees

“If you can't live by the laws the LORD God made for the world, they'll go into effect regardless.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, quote from The Bean Trees

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Popular quotes

“All pain seemed to come with lots of blood, and lots of mental anguish, too. I already knew about that. Maybe that was the worst kind of pain, because nobody knew about it but you.”
― V.C. Andrews, quote from My Sweet Audrina

“I always feel that young doctors are only too anxious to experiment. After they've whipped out all our teeth, and administered quantities of very peculiar glands, and removed bits of our insides, they then confess that nothing can be done for us. I really prefer the old-fashioned remedy of big black bottles of medicine. After all, one can always pour those down the sink.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from A Murder Is Announced

“91 He who dwells in  a the shelter of the Most High         will abide in  b the shadow of the Almighty. 2    I will say [1] to the LORD, “My  c refuge and my  d fortress,         my God, in whom I  e trust.”     3 For he will deliver you from  f the snare of the fowler         and from the deadly pestilence. 4    He will  g cover you with his pinions,         and under his  h wings you will  i find refuge;         his  j faithfulness is  k a shield and buckler. 5     l You will not fear  m the terror of the night,         nor the arrow that flies by day, 6    nor the pestilence that stalks in darkness,         nor the destruction that wastes at noonday.     7 A thousand may fall at your side,         ten thousand at your right hand,         but it will not come near you. 8    You will only look with your eyes         and  n see the recompense of the wicked.     9 Because you have made the LORD your  o dwelling place—         the Most High, who is my  c refuge”
― quote from The Holy Bible: English Standard Version

“You should have never let him in the house.” Noah stopped in front of the counter. “For God’s sake, Sabella, I thought you would know better than to confront that son of a bitch while you’re carrying my mark.”
She kept her head down. How many times had she laughed at Nathan when he had said something similar? When he had been irritated with her, or was just being a man.
She should have known better than to go four-wheeling with Sienna that first year they were married, without him, because when she wrecked, she wrenched her ankle and he hadn’t been tere to make sure she was okay. She should have known better than to try to fix a busted pipe in the basement on her own, because she’d ended up drenched and the basement had gotten wet. So many instances. And she should have always known better.
She lifted her head. “Now you can leave. You should know better than to piss off an already angry woman.”
She should have known better than to give Rory a say in the hiring.
“Sabella, sweetheart, look at me.” His voice roughened. “If he had hurt you, I would have had to kill him. I would have enjoyed killing him.”
“And it would have been my fault.” She nodded with a bitter smile. “Sure, I understand.”
“No, it would have been his fault for being stupid enough to touch you. But haven’t you figured out that yet that men aren’t always smart enough to keep their hands off things that don’t belong to them?”
Her head jerked up in surprise. “So you think I belong to you now?”
She didn’t flinch when he reached out to touch her. Over the years, she had always had to suppress a flinch when another man tried to stroke her, kiss her.
“You don’t belong to him,” he told her, his fingertip stroking over the rasp of his beard that he had left on her jaw. “Testosterone is a dangerous thing sometimes.”
― Lora Leigh, quote from Wild Card

“Betsy did not answer. She was a talker, her family always said, but sometimes when she most wanted to talk she couldn't say a word.”
― Maud Hart Lovelace, quote from Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown

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