“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.”
―
Karen Joy Fowler,
We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
“Arriving late was a way of saying that your own time was more valuable than the time of the person who waited for you.” ― Karen Joy Fowler, The Jane Austen Book Club
“The happening and telling are very different things. This doesn’t mean that the story isn’t true,only that I honestly don’t know anymore if I really remember it or only remember how to tell it. Language does this to our memories, simplifies, solidifies, codifies, mummifies. An off-told story is like a photograph in a family album. Eventually it replaces the moment it was meant to capture.” ― Karen Joy Fowler, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
“In the phrase ' human being,' the word 'being' is much more important than the word 'human.' ” ― Karen Joy Fowler, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
“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.” ― Karen Joy Fowler, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
“The world runs,” Lowell said, “on the fuel of this endless, fathomless misery. People know it, but they don’t mind what they don’t see. Make them look and they mind, but you’re the one they hate, because you’re the one that made them look.” ― Karen Joy Fowler, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
“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.” ― Karen Joy Fowler, Sarah Canary
“In everyone's life there are people who stay and people who go and people who are taken against their will.” ― Karen Joy Fowler, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
“You learn as much from failure as from success, Dad always says. Though no one admires you for it.” ― Karen Joy Fowler, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
“I once broke up with a boy because he wrote me an awful poem.” ― Karen Joy Fowler, The Jane Austen Book Club
“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?” ― Karen Joy Fowler, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
“I'm unclear on the definition of person the courts have been using. Something that sieves out dolphins but lets corporations slide on through.” ― Karen Joy Fowler, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
“When there is an invisible elephant in the room, one is from time to time bound to trip over a trunk.” ― Karen Joy Fowler, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
“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.” ― Karen Joy Fowler, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
“Sometimes you best avoid talking by being quiet, but sometimes you best avoid talking by talking.” ― Karen Joy Fowler, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
“There was something appealing in thinking of a character with a secret life that her author knew nothing about. Slipping off while the author's back was turned, to find love in her own way. Showing up just in time to deliver the next bit of dialogue with an innocent face.” ― Karen Joy Fowler
“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.” ― Karen Joy Fowler, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
“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.” ― Karen Joy Fowler, The Jane Austen Book Club
“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?” ― Karen Joy Fowler, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
“Arriving late was a way of saying that your own time was more valuable than the time of the person who waited for you.” ― Karen Joy Fowler, The Jane Austen Book Club
“The happening and telling are very different things. This doesn’t mean that the story isn’t true,only that I honestly don’t know anymore if I really remember it or only remember how to tell it. Language does this to our memories, simplifies, solidifies, codifies, mummifies. An off-told story is like a photograph in a family album. Eventually it replaces the moment it was meant to capture.” ― Karen Joy Fowler, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
“In the phrase ' human being,' the word 'being' is much more important than the word 'human.' ” ― Karen Joy Fowler, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
“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.” ― Karen Joy Fowler, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
“The world runs,” Lowell said, “on the fuel of this endless, fathomless misery. People know it, but they don’t mind what they don’t see. Make them look and they mind, but you’re the one they hate, because you’re the one that made them look.” ― Karen Joy Fowler, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
“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.” ― Karen Joy Fowler, Sarah Canary
“In everyone's life there are people who stay and people who go and people who are taken against their will.” ― Karen Joy Fowler, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
“You learn as much from failure as from success, Dad always says. Though no one admires you for it.” ― Karen Joy Fowler, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
“I once broke up with a boy because he wrote me an awful poem.” ― Karen Joy Fowler, The Jane Austen Book Club
“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?” ― Karen Joy Fowler, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
“I'm unclear on the definition of person the courts have been using. Something that sieves out dolphins but lets corporations slide on through.” ― Karen Joy Fowler, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
“When there is an invisible elephant in the room, one is from time to time bound to trip over a trunk.” ― Karen Joy Fowler, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
“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.” ― Karen Joy Fowler, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
“Sometimes you best avoid talking by being quiet, but sometimes you best avoid talking by talking.” ― Karen Joy Fowler, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
“There was something appealing in thinking of a character with a secret life that her author knew nothing about. Slipping off while the author's back was turned, to find love in her own way. Showing up just in time to deliver the next bit of dialogue with an innocent face.” ― Karen Joy Fowler
“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.” ― Karen Joy Fowler, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
“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.” ― Karen Joy Fowler, The Jane Austen Book Club
“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?” ― Karen Joy Fowler, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
