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

• You fall out of your mother's womb, you crawl across open country under fire, and drop into your grave.

  

  Quentin Crisp
  • Country
  • Mother
  • Fall

• 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

• So many venues are owned by these various different ticketing and promoting people, and they're all in bed with one another. It's no secret over here.

  

  Imogen Heap
  • People
  • Different
  • Bed

• 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

• After I'd been in college for a couple years I'd read Shakespeare and Frost and Chaucer and the poets of the Harlem Renaissance. I'd come to appreciate how gorgeous the English language could be. But most fantasy novels didn't seem to make the effort.

  

  Patrick Rothfuss
  • College
  • Couple
  • Effort

• I trust my makeup artist to apply dark lipstick, but I get nervous about reapplying it, so I'll just use gloss instead. The last time I tried to reapply dark lipstick, I dropped it on my dress and it left a spot.

  

  Jessica Biel
  • Time
  • Trust
  • Dark

• I don’t have an issue with serving in the military per se, but serving in the South African army suppressing black people just didn’t seem like a really good way to spend time.

  

  Elon Musk
  • People
  • Time
  • Good

• The preservation of the means of knowledge among the lowest ranks is of more importance to the public than all the property of all the rich men in the country.

  

  John Adams
  • Men
  • Country
  • Knowledge

• Art is the subjective, preferential treatment of certain elements of reality; it selects and resets, distributes light and shade, omits and underlines, softens and emphasises.

  

  Egon Friedell
  • Art
  • Reality
  • Treatment

• 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