Sadness is more or less like a head cold - with patience, it passes. Depression is like cancer.
Barbara KingsolverRead
Readers of fiction read, I think, for a deeper embrace of the world, of reality. And that's brave. I never get over being thankful for that - for the courage of my readers.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Readers of fiction engage bravely with complex realities through stories, and the author appreciates their courage.
In this quote, Barbara Kingsolver expresses her gratitude towards fiction readers who seek a deeper understanding of the world through literature. She highlights the courage required to embrace the complexities of reality as portrayed in fiction, suggesting that reading is not merely an escape but a profound engagement with life’s challenges and truths.
Themes
ReadingFictionCourageGratitudeWorld
In practice
Example use cases
Use this quote in a speech about the importance of literature in understanding our society.
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.
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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.
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When I am experiencing a complex story or novel, the broader planes, and also details, tend to fall away.
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Is any novelist going to recognize the moment when he or she has nothing more to say? It is a brave thing to admit. And since as a professional writer you are full of anxiety anyway, you could easily misread the signs.
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Because of writers like Chinua Achebe and Camara Laye … I realized that people like me, girls with skin the color of chocolate, whose kinky hair could not form ponytails, could also exist in literature.
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By God, if women had written stories, As clerks had within here oratories, They would have written of men more wickedness Than all the mark of Adam may redress.
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I think that an author who speaks about his own books is almost as bad as a mother who talks about her own children.
Benjamin DisraeliRead
The short story is still like the novel's wayward younger brother, we know that it's not respectable - but I think that can also add to the glory of it.
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