Sadness is more or less like a head cold - with patience, it passes. Depression is like cancer.
Barbara KingsolverRead
I can think of no honorable answer. Why must some of us deliberate between brands of toothpaste, while others deliberate between damp dirt and bone dust to quiet the fire of an empty stomach lining? There is nothing about the United States I can really explain to this child of another world.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote highlights the stark contrasts between different people's life experiences and the absurdity of trivial choices in the face of severe hardship.
In this quote, Barbara Kingsolver reflects on the disparity of experiences between privileged individuals and those who face dire situations. By contrasting the mundane decisions of everyday life, like choosing toothpaste, with the agonizing choices made by those who struggle for survival, she underscores the injustice of a world where some live in comfort while others endure suffering. The speaker feels a deep sense of impotence in trying to explain such inequalities to a naive child, indicating the complexity and moral weight of these issues.
Themes
InequalityPovertyStruggleSurvivalPrivilege
In practice
Example use cases
During a speech about social justice, one might use this quote to illustrate the disparity in life choices based on socioeconomic status.
More from Barbara Kingsolver
All quotes →Children can be your heartache. But that doesn't matter, you have to go on and have them . . . it works out.
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I'm of a fearsome mind to throw my arms around every living librarian who crosses my path, on behalf of the souls they never knew they saved.
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I did it to win love, and to prove myself capable. Not to move mountains. In my opinions, mountains don't move. They only look changed when you look down on them from great height.
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Memory is a complicated thing, a relative to truth, but not its twin.
Barbara KingsolverRead
Empathy is really the opposite of spiritual meanness. It's the capacity to understand that every war is both won and lost. And that someone else's pain is as meaningful as your own.
Barbara KingsolverRead
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