Sadness is more or less like a head cold - with patience, it passes. Depression is like cancer.
Barbara KingsolverRead
The important thing isn't the house. It's the ability to make it. You carry that in your brains and in your hands, wherever you go... It's one thing to carry your life wherever you go. Another thing to always go looking for it somewhere else.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The value of life lies in our ability to create and carry our experiences with us, not in material possessions.
This quote emphasizes that true importance does not lie in physical possessions, such as a house, but rather in one's innate ability to create a sense of home and life wherever they are. The distinction made between carrying one's life with them and searching for it elsewhere serves as a reminder that fulfillment comes from within rather than from external sources.
Themes
LifeHomeCreationExperienceSelf
In practice
Example use cases
During a motivational speech about personal growth, you can use this quote to inspire others to create their own paths.
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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