Author Sue Monk Kidd Quotes

sue monk kidd book signing

Sue Monk Kidd’s The Invention of Wings has won the 2015 SIBA Book Award for Fiction. Nominated by Southern indie booksellers and readers and selected by a jury of Southern booksellers, SIBA Book Award winners “represent the best of Southern literature.”

sue monk kidd invention of wings coverSue Monk Kidd attended the Sarah and Angelina Grimke Day on May 5, 2015 at the College of Charleston. The day honored the Grimke sisters renowned for their feminist and abolitionist activism. Kidd’s The invention of Wings is a fictionalized account of Sara Grimke’s life. Here are some quotes from the book.

“I looked away from him toward the pond blotched with pollen and silt, the water bronzing in the shrinking light.” -The Invention of Wings

“There’s a frightful muteness that dwells at the center of all unspeakable things, and I had found my way into it.”- The Invention of Wings

sue monk kidd's secret life of beesSue Monk Kidd’s first book, The secret Life of Bees won the Siba Book Award in 2003. The story was made into a movie of the same title and released on October 17, 2008. Quotes from the book:
“That night, in my bed, when I closed my eyes, bee hum ran through my body. Ran through the whole earth. It was the oldest sound there was. Souls flying away.” -The Secret Life of Bees

“I didn’t like pancakes that much, but I didn’t say so. I was just thankful it wasn’t grits. After kneeling on them half your life, you don’t care to eat them.” -The Secret Life of Bees

sue monk kidd's The Dance of the dissident daughterThe subtitle to this book is A Woman’s Journey from Christian Tradition to the Sacred Feminine (Plus) It was published in 2006. Quotes follow:

“We go to the core many times, in many ways. I had my first taste of the labyrinth’s core when I found the circle of trees in the woods and felt myself reclaiming and celebrating feminine ground, discovering for the first time the woman I was (and would be) at soul level.” -The Dance of the Dissident Daughter

“Writing is not only my career, it’s my compulsion.” -The Dance of the Dissident Daughter

Sue Monk Kidd's Traveling with PomegranatesThe subtitle to this book is A Mother and Daughter Journey to the Sacred Places of Greece, Turkey and France published in 2010. Quotes:

“The growing recognition of my mortality seems part of the threshold I’m crossing, and I know my soul is asking me to come to terms with it, to develop the ability to look at death, to find my way into its secrecy and wisdom, its stunning ordinariness.” -Traveling with Pomegranates
“The water along the bow churns the same slate color as the sky, and I think fleetingly of the River Styx, the mythological river between life and death over which souls are ferried to the other side.” -Traveling With Pomegranates
“We write to taste life twice,” Anais Nin wrote, “in the moment and in retrospection.” -Traveling With Pomegranates
“Images well up in me more spontaneously, trailing along a stream of ideas, memories, feelings, and symbols, and I feel connected to a source-like place in myself.” -Traveling With Pomegranates

sue monk kidd The Mermaid ChairPublished in 2006, I enjoyed all the metaphors and visuals. Quotes:

“I promise you, no one judges me more harshly than I do myself; I caused a brilliant wreckage. Some say I fell from grace; they’re being kind. I didn’t fall – I dove.” The Mermaid Chair

“They say you can bear anything if you can tell a story about it.”The Mermaid Chair

“I have come here not to find answers, but to find a way to live in a world without any.”The Mermaid Chair

How many of Sue Monk Kidd’s books have you read?  Do you have a favorite?

4 Comments

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4 Responses to Author Sue Monk Kidd Quotes

  1. nevajhodges

    I’ve read The Dance of the Dissidents Daughter and The Secret Life of Bees I want to read the others too.

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  2. ladywinfred

    I feel a book-buying spree coming on. I’ve read The Secret Life of Bees and The Mermaid’s Chairs and loved them both. Next up: Invention of Wings and Dance of the Dissident Daughter (this one sound especially intriguing). Thanks, Julaina!!

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