Sadness is more or less like a head cold - with patience, it passes. Depression is like cancer.
Barbara KingsolverRead
You don't think you'll live past it and you don't really. The person you were is gone. But the half of you that's still alive wakes up one day and takes over again.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote reflects on the transformative power of adversity, illustrating how we evolve through difficult experiences.
In this quote, Barbara Kingsolver expresses the deep impact that challenging life events can have on a person. She suggests that when faced with significant hardships, a part of us changes or diminishes, leaving behind an altered sense of self. However, through resilience and time, the part of us that endures can awaken and reassert itself, allowing for personal growth and renewal beyond past struggles.
Themes
TransformationAdversityResilienceGrowthSelf-Discovery
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be shared during a support group meeting for individuals coping with loss or trauma.
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.
Barbara KingsolverRead
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