"The Poisonwood Bible" Quotes

If you've ever been homesick, or felt exiled from all the things and people that once defined you, you'll know how important welcoming words and friendly smiles can be.

Don't try to make life a mathematics problem with yourself in the center and everything coming out equal. When you're good, bad things can still happen. And if you're bad, you can still be lucky.

Everything you're sure is right can be wrong in another place. Sometimes I think of the peace signs as the footprints of the American chicken.

Everything looks different from the air. You see more.

I was a fan of the poet Amiri Baraka, who used to be known as LeRoi Jones. The Black Arts Movement was the only thing that ever seemed to get real news from the streets to the people.

The Congo was a big cake walk, but I was too dumb to know it before I went down there. I was so conceited, I didn't realize that a man could be killed and get no justice. I didn't know that there were people on this earth who could be killed with impunity and without any reason, people who are just in the way.

History is the present. That's why every generation writes it anew. But what most people think of as history is its end product, myth.

I don't know what I thought I was proving, anyway. That I could be tougher than the earth? I was happy to let it defeat me.

The world is full of things that can't be explained. I think insomnia is one of them.

I can't save you if you won't let me.