The Bean Trees

by Barbara Kingsolver

And I did not know about the Great Plain. The sight of it filled me with despair.

I had never imagined that any part of a round earth could be so flat.

But out there on the plain it was all laid out right in front of you, and no matter how far you looked it didn’t get any better. Oklahoma made me feel there was nothing left to hope for.

Arizona didn’t do anything halfway.

“She’s got a mean streak in her,” I told him. “If you’re unlucky enough to get ahold of a dog like that, you give it away to somebody with a big farm. I don’t know what you do about a neighbor.”

Sadness is more or less like a head cold—with patience, it passes. Depression is like cancer.

I realized that I had come to my own terms with the desert, but my soul was thirsty.

It’s also interesting how it’s hard to be depressed around a three-year-old, if you’re paying attention.