Barbara Kingsolver: "It seemed so ordinary..."

"It seemed so ordinary on the face of things, to try to do what nearly all people used to do without a second thought."

—Barbara Kingsolver, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (on growing one's own food)

Barbara Kingsolver: "All stories, they say..."

"All stories, they say, begin in one of two ways: 'A stranger came to town,' or else, 'I set out upon a journey.'" The rest is all just metaphor and simile.

—Barbara Kingsolver, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

Barbara Kingsolver: "But rare is the perfect..."

"But rare is the perfect first attempt. I know as well as the next person who has ever been young."

—Barbara Kingsolver, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

Barbara Kingsolver: "From a biological perspective..."

"From a biological perspective, the ultimate act of failure is to raise helpless kids."

—Barbara Kingsolver, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

Barbara Kingsolver: "We're converts in progress..."

"Our locavore project nudged us constantly toward new personal bests. But is always remained fascination, not fanaticism. We still ate out at restaurants with friends sometimes, and happily accepted invitations to dine at their homes. People who knew about our project would get flustered sometimes about inviting us, or when seeing us in a restaurant would behave as if they'd caught the cat eating the canary.

We always explained, 'We're converts in progress, not preachers. No stone tablets.'"

—Barbara Kingsolver, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

Barbara Kingsolver: "Cooking is 80 percent..."

"Cooking is 80 percent confidence, a skill best acquired starting from when the apron strings wrap around you twice."

—Barbara Kingsolver, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

Barbara Kingsolver: "Where my kids are concerned..."

"Where my kids are concerned I find myself hoping for the simplest things: that if someday they crave orchards where their kids can climb into the branches and steal apples, the world will have trees enough with arms to receive them."

—Barbara Kingsolver, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

Barbara Kingsolver: "Food is not a product..."

"Food is not a product but a process, and it never sleeps. It just goes underground for a while."

—Barbara Kingsolver, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

Barbara Kingsolver: "We all cultivate illusions..."

"We all cultivate illusions of safety that could fall away in the knife edge of one second."

—Barbara Kingsolver, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

Barbara Kingsolver: "When moral superiority..."

"When moral superiority combines with billowing ignorance, they fill up a hot-air balloon that's awfully hard not to poke."

—Barbara Kingsolver, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

Barbara Kingsolver: "Whether you prefer to..."

"Whether you prefer to sit on a rock in a peaceful place, or take a wooden spoon to a simmering pot, it does the body good to quiet down and tune in."

—Barbara Kingsolver, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

Barbara Kingsolver: "Even the smallest backyard..."

"Even the smallest backyard garden offers emotional rewards in the domain of the little miracle."

—Barbara Kingsolver, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

Barbara Kingsolver: "People might wish to..."

"People might wish to sleep in, but cows never do."

—Barbara Kingsolver, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

Barbara Kingsolver:" A thriving field of..."

"A thriving field of vegetables is as needy as a child, and similarly, the custodian's job isn't done till the good have matured and moved out."

—Barbara Kingsolver, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

Barbara Kingsolver: "You can leave the..."

"You can leave the killing to others and pretend it never happened, or you can look it in the eye and know it."

—Barbara Kingsolver, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle  (on raising and harvesting poultry)

Barbara Kingsolver: "'Perfect' is not the..."

"'Perfect' is not the currency of farming."

—Barbara Kingsolver, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

Barbara Kingsolver: "Transporting a single calorie..."

"Transporting a single calorie of a perishable fresh fruit from California to New York takes a bout 87 calories worth of fuel. That's as efficient as driving from Philadelphia to Annapolis, and back, in order to walk three miles on a treadmill in a Maryland gym."

—Barbara Kingsolver, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

Barbara Kingsolver: "'This is New York...'"

"'This is New York', she assured me. 'We can get anything we want, any day of the year.' So it is. And I don't wish to be ungracious, but we get it at a price. Most of that is not measured in money, but in untallied debts that will be paid by our children in the currency of extinctions, economic unravelings, and global climate change."

—Barbara Kingsolver, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

Barbara Kingsolver: "It is both extraordinary...

"It is both extraordinary and unsympathetic in our culture to refrain from having everything one can afford."

—Barbara Kingsolver, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

Barbara Kingsolver: "Pushing a refrigerated green..."

"Pushing a refrigerated green vegetable from one end of the earth to another is, let's face it, a bizarre use of fuel... Respecting the dignity of a spectacular food means enjoying it at its best... Eating home-cooked meals from whole, in-season ingredients obtained from the most local source available is eating well, in every sense. Good for the habitat, good for the body."

—Barbara Kingsolver, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle