“Far away, I can hear Mouflon, our last sheep, bleating in the dark. I wonder if Annie is still out to protect her, still scouring the woods in barefoot pursuit of those dogs. I feel sorry for Annie, alone with… — Karen Russell Copy Share Image
“My fingers curl through the holes in the wicker, through the wet grass beneath it, trying to hold tight to the sharp blades of the present. Somewhere in my brain a sinkhole is bubbling over, and each bubble contains a… — 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 politely, as if the TV were a foreign dignitary giving an unintelligible lecture, and waiting for any news from Dr. Gautman. As if on cue, that lame movie from the sixties started playing, Ladies In Waiting.… — Karen Russell Copy Share
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
