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… — Karen Russell Copy Share Image
“As a kid I heard the word malignancy as "Malig-Nancy" like an evil woman's name, no matter how many times Kiwi and the Chief and Dr. Gautman himself corrected me. Our mother had mistaken her first symptoms for a pregnancy, and so I still pictured the Malig-Nancy as a baby, a tiny, eyeless fist of a sister, killing her.” — Karen Russell Copy Share
“Once Mom and Ossie and I spent an afternoon alone together in her hospital room. We were watching the small TV above her head… — Karen Russell Copy Share Image
People really get myopic as they get older. We're not a culture that encourages dreaming or distraction. We're not ever good at just being.… — Karen Russell Copy Share Image
It is a special kind of homelessness to be evicted from your dreams. — Karen Russell Copy Share Image
“She used to suffer these intense bouts of homesickness in her own bedroom. When she was very small, she would wake up tearing at… — Karen Russell Copy Share Image
“At ten, I couldn't articulate much but I got the message: to be a true historian, you had to mourn amply and well. (spoken… — Karen Russell Copy Share Image
“ Forever , just the word fills Beverly with an unaccountable, schoolmarmish sort of rage. Forever, that's got to be bad math, right? Such terrifying math.” — Karen Russell Copy Share Image
“I swim with all my strength. No superhuman surge, or pony heroics; it's just me at my most desperate.” — Karen Russell Copy Share Image
So much of the way books get classified has to do with marketing decisions. I think it's more useful to think of literary books… — Karen Russell Copy Share Image
The beginning of the end can feel a lot like the middle when you are living in it. — Karen Russell Copy Share Image
“I often think, that she foresaw only the end times, never hot dogs.” — Karen Russell Copy Share Image
