Barbara Kingsolver: Quotes about people

“It is true that I do not speak as well as I can think. But that is true of most people, as nearly as I can tell.”

“Silence has many advantages. When you do not speak, other people presume you to be deaf or feeble-minded and promptly make a show of their own limitations.”

“Last time I talked to her she didn't sound like herself. She's depressed. It's awful what happens when people run out of money. They start thinking they're no good.”

“I've about decided that's the main thing that separates happy people from the other people: the feeling that you're a practical item, with a use, like a sweater or a socket wrench.”

“I know how people are, with their habits of mind. Most will sail through from cradle to grave with a conscience clean as snow… I know people. Most have no earthly notion of the price of a snow-white conscience.”

“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.”

“Don't try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say.”

“Will you explain to me why people encourage delusional behaviour in children, and medicate it in adults?”

“In Kilanga, people knew nothing of things they might have had - a Frigidaire? a washer-dryer combination? Really, they'd sooner imagine a tree that could pull up its feet and go bake bread. It didn't occur to them to feel sorry for themselves.”

“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. I'm not lying. He got stuck up there. About nineteen people congregated during the time it took for Norman Strick to walk up to the Courthouse and blow the whistle for the volunteer fire department. They eventually did come with the ladder and haul him down, and he wasn't dead but lost his hearing and in many other ways was never the same afterward. They said he overfilled the tire.”