Karen Russell Quotes

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
• Patterns
• Illogical

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Quotes to Explore

• I struggle if I have chaos around me, but at the same time, if I don't have it, I'm uncomfortable. It's a strange thing: If I don't have chaos, I create it.

  

  Sam Taylor-Wood
  • Time
  • Struggle
  • Chaos

• I thought of the soul as resembling a castle, formed of a single diamond or a very transparent crystal, and containing many rooms, just as in Heaven there are many mansions.

  

  Saint Teresa of Avila
  • Soul
  • Single
  • Heaven

• I said yes, which turned out to be the right answer.

  

  Pat Sajak
  • Right
  • Said
  • Yes

• Fear is... a kind of unintentional storytelling that we are all born knowing how to do.

  

  Karen Thompson Walker
  • Fear
  • Kind
  • Born

• The very phrase 'Make America great again' implies some kind of reset to a time long since passed. A mission to restore America to a previous default setting where American economic superiority was without peer, factories and manufacturing plants were humming, and jobs were plentiful for anyone who wanted one.

  

  Fabrizio Moreira
  • Time
  • Great
  • Long

• I could have ended the war in a month. I could have made North Vietnam look like a mud puddle.

  

  Barry Goldwater
  • War
  • Look
  • Month

• I have a mantra in my head that there will always be another meal. I can put my fork down, knowing there will be good things in my future!

  

  Gail Simmons
  • Good
  • Future
  • Good Things

• I'm not really a food connoisseur.

  

  Aasif Mandvi
  • Food
  • Really
  • Connoisseur

• What 'Shaun of the Dead' and 'Hot Fuzz' and 'World's End' do is smuggle a different movie under the guise of a zombie movie or a cop or alien invasion movie. Even though they all have action and carnage, they are really films about growing up and taking responsibility.

  

  Edgar Wright
  • Up
  • World
  • Different

• A family has its own rituals and its own superstitions.

  

  Tea Obreht
  • Family
  • Own
  • Superstitions

• When moms stayed home, it was easier just to let the kids play around the house. But as women entered the workplace and the extended family dissolved, someone else had to pick up the slack on the child-care front. Extracurricular activities fit the bill perfectly, promising not only supervision but also enrichment.

  

  Carl Honore
  • Up
  • Women
  • Family

• A lot of times you come against actors who come from a different direction, and you tend to meet in the middle.

  

  Laila Robins
  • Different
  • You
  • Direction

• Slow down, everyone. You're moving too fast.

  

  Galveston Giant
  • Moving
  • Down
  • Slow

• People forget that writers start off being readers. We all love it when we find a terrific read, and we want to let people know about it.

  

  Karin Slaughter
  • People
  • Know
  • Read

• At exactly which point do you start to realize, that life without knowledge is death in disguise?

  

  Talib Kweli Black Star
  • Life
  • Death
  • Knowledge

• Notice that much of what men do is also done by single mothers so appreciating what men do also helps us appreciate what single moms do.

  

  Warren Farrell
  • Men
  • Done
  • Single

• We have much to learn by studying nature and taking the time to tease out its secrets.

  

  David Suzuki
  • Time
  • Nature

• Most of my childhood revolved around wondering when we would be blown up by the Russians. I couldn't stand the news, I knew that if the missile were launched, mortality would arrive in half an hour, so I spent a lot of my childhood feeling that I was 30 minutes from being dead.

  

  Jane Smiley
  • Up
  • Feeling
  • Childhood

• My mother was an enthusiastic chef but wildly disorganized, and often preferred purchasing yet another jar of mace or chili powder rather than having to hunt down its last incarnation.

  

  Janet Fitch
  • Mother

• Whoever no longer finds greatness in God no longer finds it anywhere--he must either deny it or create it.

  

  Friedrich Nietzsche
  • God
  • Create
  • Finds

• The folly of one man is the fortune of another.

  

  Francis Bacon
  • Man
  • Fortune
  • Folly

• If we want to transform reality, we begin with ourselves. We do not ask the world to change, and we do not fight against society. It has to be us ourselves who affirm our own values.

  

  Alejandro Jodorowsky
  • World
  • Society
  • Reality

• Our government has made a number of promises to the men and women who served in our nation's armed forces. Sadly, these promises of health care, education and other benefits have existed more in rhetoric than in reality.

  

  Allen Boyd
  • Men
  • Women
  • Reality

• 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