Barbara Kingsolver Quotes

I want to get people to connect to the outdoors.

I have no enthusiasm for nature which the slightest chill will not instantly destroy.

I have two children and it's amazing how in tune they are with nature, with light, with smells, with time.

I learn something every time I go into the mountains.

What I want to do with my filmmaking is help kids experience the truth and wisdom of nature no matter where they are, whether or not they have the opportunity to go to a national park.

I think being raised spending so much time outdoors was really important - while you're in it, you might not know, but now I think of the things I was thankful for.

Besides what I do, I love fishing; I love bringing my children to the forest, getting outdoors in nature. Get outside, people! Stop looking at screens.

Exposing children to nature, especially at an early age, keeps them grounded.

I think one of the most important things is just being outside and in touch with nature. You need it!

I have grown up on a diet of sunrise picnics, learning the names of butterflies, planting trees.

Children have become disengaged from nature and we need to reintroduce them to the pleasure that it brings. If we do that they will care for it. Through the simple act of planting a tree we can open their eyes to nature's beauty.

Progress does not have to be patented to be worthwhile. Progress can also be measured by our interactions with nature and its preservation. Can we teach children to look at a flower and see all the things it represents: beauty, the health of an ecosystem, and the potential for healing?

Question four: What book would you give to every child? Answer: I wouldn't give them a book. Books are part of the problem: this strange belief that a tree has nothing to say until it is murdered, its flesh pulped, and then (human) people stain this flesh with words. I would take children outside and put them face to face with chipmunks, dragonflies, tadpoles, hummingbirds, stones, rivers, trees, crawdads. That said, if you're going to force me to give them a book, it would be The Wind In The Willows, which I hope would remind them to go outside.

We must remain as close to the flowers, the grass, and the butterflies as the child is who is not yet so much taller than they are. We adults, on the other hand, have outgrown them and have to lower ourselves to stoop down to them. It seems to me that the grass hates us when we confess our love for it. Whoever would partake of all good things must understand how to be small at times.

By suggestion and example, I believe children can be helped to hear the many voices about them. Take Time to listen and talk about the voices of the earth and what they mean-the majestic voice of thunder, the winds, the sound of surf or flowing streams.

Each of us-adult or child-must earn nature's gift by knowing nature directly, however difficult it may be to glean that knowledge in an urban environment.

There is no part of the country where in the summer you cannot get a sufficient supply of the best specimens. Teach your children to bring them in for themselves. Take your text from the brooks, not from the booksellers.

Young people, I want to beg of you always keep your eyes open to what Mother Nature has to teach you. By so doing you will learn many valuable things every day of your life.

How can there be too many children? That is like saying there are too many flowers.

Whatever trips you make, you must still have nature in your eye.

Everybody's twelve years old in an apple orchard.

Whether it was hunting, fishing, or playing sports, my children were going to grow up outside. They weren't going to be sitting on the couch inside. At least they didn't grow up to be nerds.

Let the children learn to see in nature an expression of the love and the wisdom of God; let the thought of Him be linked with bird and flower and tree; let all things seen become to them the interpreters of the unseen, and all the events of life be a means of divine teaching. As they learn thus to study the lessons in all created things and in all life's experiences, show that the same laws which govern the things of nature and the events of life are to control us, that they are given for our good, and that only in obedience to them can we find true happiness and success.

As long as there are flowers and children and birds in the world, have no fears: everything will be fine.