Karen Russell Quotes

United States, Novelist
July 10, 1981

Karen Russell is an American novelist and short story writer. Her debut novel, Swamplandia!, was a finalist for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. She was also the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation "Genius Grant" in 2013. In 2009 the National Book Foundation named her a 5 under 35 honoree.

Also known as Short Story Writer

My older sister has entire kingdoms inside of her, and some of them are only accessible at certain seasons, in certain kinds of weather.

Karen Russell
- Certain
- Older
- Seasons
When you're a kid, it's hard to tell the innocuous secrets from the ones that will kill you if you keep them.

Karen Russell
- Kids
- Secret
- Hard

Self-disciplin e is necessary, but so is playfulness, flexibility, joy. When you stop demanding perfection of yourself, your writing desk will become a spacious place.

Karen Russell
Fiction helps me to reconnect with the true, deep weirdness inherent in everyday reality, in our dealings with one another, in just being alive.

Karen Russell
Whenever someone asks me about fantasy versus realism, I'm like, "I don't know, guys. Did we not all just descend into some underworld, watch strangers from our past kaleidoscope through us according to some pattern that is both illogical and has its own strange melting truth, and then wake up and have a Pop-Tart?" Why are we talking about fantasy and reality like they're opposed?

Karen Russell
- Reality
- Fantasy
- Stranger
It is a special kind of homelessness to be evicted from your dreams.

Karen Russell
I came to hate the complainers, with their dry and crumbly lipsticks and their wrinkled rage and their stupid, flaccid, old-people sun hats with brims the breadth of Saturn's rings.

Karen Russell
- People
- Rings
- Hats
Heaven, Kiwi thought, would be the reading room of a great library. But it would be private. Cozy. You wouldn't have to worry about some squeaky-shoed librarian turning the lights off on you or gauging your literacy by reading the names on your book spines, and there wouldn't be a single other patron. The whole place would hum with a library's peace, filtering softly over you like white bars of light.

Karen Russell
- Light
- Reading
- Heaven

The beginning of the end can feel a lot like the middle when you are living in it.

Karen Russell
- Beginning
- Living
- Middle
You small mortals don't realize the power of your stories.

Karen Russell