Quotes from Karen Joy Fowler

We sat around our own table, an island of sad reflection in an ocean of merry din.

But the most fantastical of my imaginary worlds turned out to be the one I'd thought was real. As a child, I believed the world was run by competent, sane and benevolent adults. I believed this for much longer than I believed in Santa Claus. That belief has since gone down like the Titanic (on which I also spent a lot of time as a child). The world is run by nitwits and psychopaths.

If she was exposing more skin than usual, that was because it was going to be a hundred-fucking-six degrees. Was she supposed to wear a suit?

solipsism. According to solipsism, reality exists only inside

When a portent repeats itself three times, like something out of Julius Caesar, even Caliban, a couple of plays over, is bound to notice.

We should get you Linux, too. Nobody uses Windows anymore.

When I run the world, librarians will be exempt from tragedy. Even their smaller sorrows will last for only as long as you can take out a book.' -We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

But both murders affect Lincoln deeply. In his speech, he warns of two possible threats to the republic. The first is found in the lawless actions of the mob, the second in the inevitable rise someday of an aspiring dictator. The gravest peril will come if the mob and the dictator unite.

Where you succeed will never so much matter as where you fail. -We Are All Beside Ourselves

When we'd gone to Disneyland, the tree house had been my favorite thing in the whole park. If only I'd had no parents watching my every move, if only I'd been a happy, carefree orphan, I'd have hidden under the player piano until everything closed, and then taken up residence there.

He repeated a thing he'd said many times before – that most religions were obessed with policing female sexual behavior, that for many it was their entire raison d'être. He described the sexual herding done by male chimpanzees. "The only difference," he said, "is that no chimp has ever claimed he was following God's orders.

So this is what I said to Mom; this is what I meant to say - That there was something inside Fern I didn't know. That I didn't know her in the way I'd always thought I did. That Fern had secrets and not the good kind. Instead I'd said I was afraid of her. That was the lie that got her sent away.

I felt her loss in a powerfully physical way. I missed her smell and the sticky wet of her breath on my neck. I missed her fingers scratching through my hair. We sat next to each other, lay across each other, pushed, pulled, stroked, and struck each other a hundred times a day and I suffered the deprivation of this. It was an ache, a hunger on the surface of my skin.

And this is a small point by comparison, but why do Republicans persist in substituting Democrat, with its rat ending, when Democratic would be correct? Because they want us to know, in every word they speak, how much they hold us in contempt. In my lifetime, the Republicans have never accepted a Democratic president as legitimate, no matter how many people vote for him [or her.])

A man at another table accused his breakfast partner of pulling rainbows and unicorns out of her ass.

WHERE YOU SUCCEED will never matter so much as where you fail," I said.

Cada cual tiene su Austen particular

Besides, it was a high bed. The dogs could never have gotten into it without help. Maybe one could have stood with its front paws on the bed frame while the other scaled its back in some unlikely dachshund Cirque de Soleil, but even then there would be only one dog in her bed, not two.

Under that sexy cap, he had the brains of bivalve and I was glad not to be the one sleeping with him.

The value of money is a scam perpetrated by those who have it over those who don't

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

I learned how to comport myself among trolls, elves, hobbits or goblins. I learned that a friend can be lost to greed and avarice. I learned that solving riddles may be as important a survival skill as bowmanship. I know how to talk to a dragon, and that it's best not to.

The smart way to build a literary career is you create an identifiable product, then reliably produce that product so people know what they are going to get. That's the smart way to build a career, but not the fun way. Maybe you can think about being less successful and happier. That's an option, too.

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