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
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.
In practice
Use this quote in a speech about the importance of literature in understanding our society.
Sadness is more or less like a head cold - with patience, it passes. Depression is like cancer.
Children can be your heartache. But that doesn't matter, you have to go on and have them . . . it works out.
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.
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.
Memory is a complicated thing, a relative to truth, but not its twin.
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.
When I am experiencing a complex story or novel, the broader planes, and also details, tend to fall away.
He's a great writer. If I didn't think so I wouldn't have tried to kill him... I was the champ and when I read his stuff I knew he had something. So I dropped a heavy glass skylight on his head at a drinking party. But you can't kill the guy. He's not human.
Literature got me into this mess and literature is going to have to get me out of it.
Every novel is an equal collaboration between the writer and the reader and it is the only place in the world where two strangers can meet on terms of absolute intimacy.
Lost Illusion is the undisclosed title of every novel.
To Southerners like my mother, 'Gone With the Wind' was not just a book; it was an answer, a clenched fist raised to the North, an anthem of defiance.
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