Well, the ancients might not have been very heroic. Most of them were probably like Mother, crouched somewhere trying to work out how to make fake jawbone jewelry that would look like the real thing.

"The very least you can do in your life is to figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof."

Barbara Kingsolver

"How does an artist learn enough about life to fill a thimble?'Soli, I'm going to tell you. He needs to go rub his soul against life. ..."

Barbara Kingsolver

"The room looks as if a giant dog after a large lunch of food, socks, paints, trousers and pencils, walked into that room and vomited everywhere."

Barbara Kingsolver

"...Animals behaved with purpose, it seemed. Unlike people."

Barbara Kingsolver

"But if we can't summon the empathy to imagine what our dead would have asked of us, or the selflessness to give it, then we must accept the desperately sad verdict that each generation's hopes will die with it, and no cumulative progress is possible for the human will."

Barbara Kingsolver

"Like kids who only ever get socks for Christmas, but still believe with all their hearts in Santa."

Barbara Kingsolver