Quotes about Legacy
I lost a child, she said, meeting Lusa's eyes directly. I thought I wouldn't live through it. But you do. You learn to love the place somebody leaves behind for you.
— Barbara Kingsolver
He was my father. I own half his genes, and all of his history. Believe this: the mistakes are part of the story. I am born of a man who believed he could tell nothing but the truth, while he set down for all time the Poisonwood Bible.
— Barbara Kingsolver
I thought I wouldn't live through it. But you do. You learn to love the place somebody leaves behind for you.
— Barbara Kingsolver
Be careful what you give children, for sooner or later you are sure to get it back.
— Barbara Kingsolver
What we end up calling history is a kind of knife, slicing down through time. A few people are hard enough to bend its edge. But most won't even stand close to the blade. I'm one of those. We don't bend anything.
— Barbara Kingsolver
Plus," Tig said, "it reminds me to be patient. Seeing all these people that have passed on. I get frustrated sometimes, waiting." "For people to die?" "Yeah. To be honest. The guys in charge of everything right now are so old. They really are, Mom. Older than you. They figured out the meaning of life in, I guess, the nineteen fifties and sixties. When it looked like there would always be plenty of everything.
— Barbara Kingsolver
A mother's unfulfilled ambitions lie heaviest on her daughters.
— Barbara Kingsolver
The daily work—that goes on, it adds up. It goes into the ground, into crops, into children's bellies and their bright eyes. Good things don't get lost.
— Barbara Kingsolver
Believe this: the mistakes are part of the story. I am born of a man who believed he could tell nothing but the truth, while he set down for all time the Poisonwood Bible.
— Barbara Kingsolver
History is not good news or bad news, it's just one big story unreeling. There are no small parts, only small actors.
— Barbara Kingsolver
Golden children ran wild over a field of dead great-grandmothers and great-grandfathers, and the bones must have wanted to rise up and knock together and rattle with joy. I have never seen a town that gave so much—so much of what counts—to its children. More than anything else I wished I belonged to one of these living, celebrated families, lush as plants, with bones in the ground for roots. I wanted pollen on my cheeks and one of those calcium ancestors to decorate as my own.
— Barbara Kingsolver
Her mark on history: the female acquaintance.
— Barbara Kingsolver