“The beginning of the end can feel a lot like the middle when you are living in it.”
―
Karen Russell,
Swamplandia!
“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, St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves
“Hopes were wallflowers. Hopes hugged the perimeter of a dance floor in your brain, tugging at their party lace, all perfume and hems and doomed expectation. They fanned their dance cards, these guests that pressed against the walls of your heart.” ― Karen Russell, Swamplandia!
“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, Swamplandia!
“My older sister has entire kingdoms inside of her, and some of them are only accessible at certain seasons, in certain kinds of weather. One such melting occurs in summer rain, at midnight, during the vine-green breathing time right before sleep. You have to ask the right question, throw the right rope bridge, to get there-and then bolt across the chasm between you, before your bridge collapses.” ― Karen Russell, St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves
“It is a special kind of homelessness to be evicted from your dreams.” ― Karen Russell, Sleep Donation
“She used to suffer these intense bouts of homesickness in her own bedroom. When she was very small, she would wake up tearing at her bedspread and shrieking, “I wanna go home! I wanna go home!” Which was distressing to all of us, of course, because she was home.” ― Karen Russell, St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves
“No, I don’t have to tell a soul about this, I promised myself. When you are a kid, you don’t know yet that a secret, like an animal, can evolve. Like an animal, a secret can develop a self-preserving intelligence. Shaglike, mute and thick, a knowledge with a fur: your secret.” ― Karen Russell, Swamplandia!
“Somehow I wasn't adding up right anymore. My parts weren't summing into myself.” ― Karen Russell, Swamplandia!
“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, St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves
“It was sad and fierce all at once, alive with a lonely purity.” ― Karen Russell, Swamplandia!
“My mom says I'm destined to be the sort of man who uses big words but pronounces them incorrectly.” ― Karen Russell (Author), St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves: Stories
“But if you kept thinking about a fight you’d lost, Mom said, you were programming yourself to lose again.” ― Karen Russell, Swamplandia!
“Any place, then, can become a cemetery. All it takes is your body. It's not fair, I think, and I get this petulant wish for ugly flowers and mourners, my mother's old familiar grief. Somebody I love to tend my future grave. Probably this is the wrong thing to be wishing for.” ― Karen Russell, St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves
“There is a loneliness that must be particular to monsters, I think, the feeling that each is the only child of a species. And now that loneliness was over.” ― Karen Russell, Vampires in the Lemon Grove: Stories
“A single note, held in an amber suspension of time, like a charcoal drawing of Icarus falling. It was sad and fierce all at once, alive with a lonely purity. It went on and on, until my own lungs were burning.“What bird are you calling?” I asked finally, when I couldn’t stand it any longer.The Bird Man stopped whistling. He grinned, so that I could see all his pebbly teeth.“You.” ― Karen Russell, Swamplandia!
“I wanted to go to him then? Not all of me but the same part he'd just hurt. I don't understand this pull, still. I think it must be a really dangerous physics, the gravity of wound to fist. You can see it happen to the other animals. When a hunter or trapper begins kicking at an alligator, its body curls to accommodate the withdrawing foot.” ― Karen Russell, Swamplandia!
“There are certain prehistoric things that swim beyond extinction.” ― Karen Russell, St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves
“She doesn't know how to answer the man's question about why she snuck into the conch. She just feels like there's something she needs to protect. Some larval understanding, something cocooned inside her, that seems to get unspun and exploded with each passing year...That's the way to do it, the grown up voices whisper. Wear your skeleton on the inside out, and keep your insect heart secret.” ― Karen Russell
“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, St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves
“Hopes were wallflowers. Hopes hugged the perimeter of a dance floor in your brain, tugging at their party lace, all perfume and hems and doomed expectation. They fanned their dance cards, these guests that pressed against the walls of your heart.” ― Karen Russell, Swamplandia!
“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, Swamplandia!
“My older sister has entire kingdoms inside of her, and some of them are only accessible at certain seasons, in certain kinds of weather. One such melting occurs in summer rain, at midnight, during the vine-green breathing time right before sleep. You have to ask the right question, throw the right rope bridge, to get there-and then bolt across the chasm between you, before your bridge collapses.” ― Karen Russell, St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves
“It is a special kind of homelessness to be evicted from your dreams.” ― Karen Russell, Sleep Donation
“She used to suffer these intense bouts of homesickness in her own bedroom. When she was very small, she would wake up tearing at her bedspread and shrieking, “I wanna go home! I wanna go home!” Which was distressing to all of us, of course, because she was home.” ― Karen Russell, St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves
“No, I don’t have to tell a soul about this, I promised myself. When you are a kid, you don’t know yet that a secret, like an animal, can evolve. Like an animal, a secret can develop a self-preserving intelligence. Shaglike, mute and thick, a knowledge with a fur: your secret.” ― Karen Russell, Swamplandia!
“Somehow I wasn't adding up right anymore. My parts weren't summing into myself.” ― Karen Russell, Swamplandia!
“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, St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves
“It was sad and fierce all at once, alive with a lonely purity.” ― Karen Russell, Swamplandia!
“My mom says I'm destined to be the sort of man who uses big words but pronounces them incorrectly.” ― Karen Russell (Author), St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves: Stories
“But if you kept thinking about a fight you’d lost, Mom said, you were programming yourself to lose again.” ― Karen Russell, Swamplandia!
“Any place, then, can become a cemetery. All it takes is your body. It's not fair, I think, and I get this petulant wish for ugly flowers and mourners, my mother's old familiar grief. Somebody I love to tend my future grave. Probably this is the wrong thing to be wishing for.” ― Karen Russell, St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves
“There is a loneliness that must be particular to monsters, I think, the feeling that each is the only child of a species. And now that loneliness was over.” ― Karen Russell, Vampires in the Lemon Grove: Stories
“A single note, held in an amber suspension of time, like a charcoal drawing of Icarus falling. It was sad and fierce all at once, alive with a lonely purity. It went on and on, until my own lungs were burning.“What bird are you calling?” I asked finally, when I couldn’t stand it any longer.The Bird Man stopped whistling. He grinned, so that I could see all his pebbly teeth.“You.” ― Karen Russell, Swamplandia!
“I wanted to go to him then? Not all of me but the same part he'd just hurt. I don't understand this pull, still. I think it must be a really dangerous physics, the gravity of wound to fist. You can see it happen to the other animals. When a hunter or trapper begins kicking at an alligator, its body curls to accommodate the withdrawing foot.” ― Karen Russell, Swamplandia!
“There are certain prehistoric things that swim beyond extinction.” ― Karen Russell, St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves
“She doesn't know how to answer the man's question about why she snuck into the conch. She just feels like there's something she needs to protect. Some larval understanding, something cocooned inside her, that seems to get unspun and exploded with each passing year...That's the way to do it, the grown up voices whisper. Wear your skeleton on the inside out, and keep your insect heart secret.” ― Karen Russell
