Barbara Kingsolver Quotes

I searched all areas of knowledge, and not only did I fail to find anything, but I was convinced that all those who had explored as I did had also come up with nothing. Not only had they found nothing, but they had clearly acknowledged the same thing that had brought me to despair: the only absolute knowledge attainable by man is that life is meaningless.

Although it is a gloomy view to suppose that life will die out, sometimes when I contemplate the things that people do with their lives I think it is almost a consolation

What's the point? was my attitude. We're all just going to die and then NOT be let on the boat.

Everything in the world is gloriously meaningless.

Life may be not only meaningless but absurd.

Since all life is futility, then the decision to exist must be the most irrational of all.

Life has become the ideology of its own absence.

In previous generations, there was purpose; you had to die, but there was God, and literature and culture would go on. Now, there is no God, and our species is imminently doomed, so there is no purpose. We get up, raise families, have bank accounts, fix our teeth and everything else. But really, there is utterly no purpose except to be alive.

Life is tragic and absurd, and none of it has any purpose at all.

My search not only failed, but I convinced myself that all those who had searched like myself had failed also, and come like me to the despairing conviction that the only absolute knowledge man can possess is this—that life is without a meaning.

In the end, the art of hunger can be described as an existential art. It is a way of looking death in the face, and by death I mean death as we live it today: without God, without hope of salvation. Death as the abrupt and absurd end of life

...the reason for living was to get ready to stay dead a long time.

But for what purpose was the earth formed?" asked Candide. "To drive us mad," replied Martin.

Why should I live? Why should I do anything? Is there in life any purpose which the inevitable death that awaits me does not undo and destroy?

Futility is the defining characteristic of life.

The point is there ain't no point.

I think we are just insects, we live a bit and then die and that’s the lot. There’s no mercy in things. There’s not even a Great Beyond. There’s nothing.

Life is absolutely unbearable. And we're going to die.

It’s an incredibly exciting thing, this one, meaningless life of yours.

Have all the hopes of ages come to naught? Is life no more with noble meaning fraught?

Death, only, renders hope futile.

It is not worth the bother of killing yourself, since you always kill yourself too late.

It's really easy to slide into a depression fueled by the pointlessness of existence.

Maybe the universe will get tired of me.

Famously, there's not really anywhere to go after nihilism. It's not progressing toward anything, it's a statement of outrage, however brilliant.