Karen Joy Fowler Quotes

“Antagonism in my family comes wrapped in layers of code, sideways feints, full deniability. I believe the same can be said of many families.”

“But where you succeed will never matter so much as where you fail.”

“Lots of people go mad in January. Not as many as in May, of course. Nor June. But January is your third most common month for madness.”

“I wonder sometimes if I'm the only one spending my life making the same mistake over and over again or if that's simply human. Do we all tend toward a single besetting sin?”

“The spoken word converts individual knowledge into mutual knowledge, and there is no way back once you've gone over that cliff. Saying nothing was more amendable, and over time I'd come to see that it was usually your best course of action.”

“I didn't want a world in which I had to choose between blind human babies and tortured monkey ones. To be frank, that's the sort of choice I expect science to protect me from, not give me.”

“When I run the world, librarians will be exempt from tragedy. Even their smaller sorrows will last only for as long as you can take out a book.”

“Language does this to our memories—simplifies, solidifies, codifies, mummifies. An oft-told story is like a photograph in a family album; eventually, it replaces the moment it was meant to capture.”

“In everyone's life there are people who stay and people who go and people who are taken against their will.”

“I once broke up with a boy because he wrote me an awful poem.”

“You learn as much from failure as from success, Dad always says. Though no one admires you for it.”

“I'm unclear on the definition of person the courts have been using. Something that sieves out dolphins but lets corporations slide on through.”

“Sometimes you best avoid talking by being quiet, but sometimes you best avoid talking by talking.”

“When there is an invisible elephant in the room, one is from time to time bound to trip over a trunk.”

“I thought there were moments to complain about your parents and moments to be grateful, and it was a shame to mix those moments up.”

“Let us never underestimate the power of a well-written letter.”

“Allegra's Austen wrote about the impact of financial need on the intimate lives of women. If she'd worked in a bookstore, Allegra would have shelved Austen in the horror section.”

“You know how everything seems so normal when you’re growing up,” she asked plaintively, “and then comes this moment when you realize your whole family is nuts?”

“You've done so many things and read so many books. Do you still believe in happy endings?"
"Oh my Lord, yes." Bernadette's hands were pressed against each other like a book, like a prayer. "I guess I would. I've had about a hundred of them.”

“In general, librarians enjoyed special requests. A reference librarian is someone who likes the chase. When librarians read for pleasure, they often pick a good mystery.”

“No Utopia is Utopia for everyone”

“The sunset you see is always better than the one you don’t. More stars are always better than less.”

“You can’t imagine the white-hot fury someone who can’t sleep has toward the beautiful dreamer beside him.”

“I still haven't found the place where I can be my true self. But maybe you never get to be your true self, either.”