Barbara Kingsolver

At home, growing up, we weren't really poor. We had everything we needed, we just didn't have what we wanted. ”

It seems very safe to me to be surrounded by green growing things and water. ”

I can count all the ways in which being a mother has enriched my understanding of the world, of character, my sense of the future and my attachment to it. I can't imagine what kind of writer I'd be if I didn't have my kids. ”

There's always a part of your nation's history that you haven't been told that... has a powerful impact on how you yourself may behave and may believe. ”

I was trained in classical piano, but it kind of dawned on me that classical pianists compete for six job openings a year, and the rest of us get to play 'Blue Moon' in a hotel lobby. ”

What you lose in blindness is the space around you, the place where you are, and without that you might not exist. You could be nowhere at all. ”

Sometimes the strength of motherhood is greater than natural laws. ”

I don't understand how any good art could fail to be political. ”

I never think that anything I'm writing is bluntly political in any way. I'm not going for commentary. ”

Being a novelist and being a mother have exactly coincided in my life: the call from my agent saying that I had a contract for my first novel - that was on my answering phone message when I got back from the hospital with my first child. ”