Southern Appalachians have been ridiculed since the country began. In fiction, they’re usually depicted in a cartoonish manner. The region is poor, and very suspicious of outsiders, so there’s a sort of ‘us versus them’ situation. They’re easy to poke fun at. Barbara Kingsolver Read Quote
When people are frightened about going hungry and paying their mortgages, a scarcity model begins to prevail; they fear someone else will get their piece of the pie. Barbara Kingsolver Read Quote
As a biologist, I can’t think of myself as anything but an animal among animals and plant. Barbara Kingsolver Read Quote
People in my novels always have terrible problems. If they are not terrible, I make them more terrible. Barbara Kingsolver Read Quote
I think the most interesting parts of human experience might be the sparks that come from that sort of chipping flint of cultures rubbing against each other. Barbara Kingsolver Read Quote
You always need that spark of imagination. Sometimes I’m midway through a book before it happens. However, I don’t wait for the muse to descend, I sit down every day and I work when I’m not delivering lambs on the farm. Barbara Kingsolver Read Quote
I know I’m a rare person, a trained scientist who writes fiction, because so few contemporary novelists engage with science. Barbara Kingsolver Read Quote
In the day-to-day, farm work is stress relief for me. At the end of the day, I love having this other career – my anti-job – that keeps me in shape and gives me control over a vegetal domain. Barbara Kingsolver Read Quote
Nonfiction requires enormous discipline. You construct the terms of your story, and then you stick to them. Barbara Kingsolver Read Quote
