I often felt myself to be an outsider, which is great training for all writers. — Karen Russell Copy Share Image
I hope that in my thirties I grow as a writer, push into new territory. — Karen Russell Copy Share Image
I moved to New York with the derangement of love. I was writing all these terrible stories, but I had never been… — Karen Russell Copy Share Image
You don't want people to think you're just writing stories for children about a pig in a tutu. — Karen Russell Copy Share Image
I really try to write every day. It's hard, but it's my favorite thing to do, so it's usually not too, too… — Karen Russell Copy Share Image
Self-disciplin e is necessary, but so is playfulness, flexibility, joy. When you stop demanding perfection of yourself, your writing desk will become… — Karen Russell Copy Share Image
It's funny to think about the uncanny reflexively, as an author who is perhaps gradually becoming aware of my own hidden secrets.… — Karen Russell Copy Share Image
Tin House magazine is a port in the storm for people who love language. It is unfailingly excellent, and committed to publishing… — Karen Russell Copy Share Image
I have friends who are capable of writing a very rough draft and then going back and embroidering - they're sort of… — Karen Russell Copy Share Image
It took me the bulk of my twenties to write one book about a family of alligator wrestlers. Whereas somebody like Steve… — Karen Russell Copy Share Image
And I do think that great fiction, even when it's comedic, has an urgency or an inevitability to it, a sense that… — Karen Russell Copy Share Image
Writers get embarrassed sometimes in talking about how much fun writing can be, but drafting is often really enjoyable. Often, you're tumbling… — Karen Russell Copy Share Image
Sometimes, when you're writing sentence by sentence, you're not really sure what footprints you're going to fall into, or what ghosts might… — Karen Russell Copy Share Image
I have friends who are capable of writing a very rough draft and then going back and embroidering - they're sort of… — Karen Russell Copy Share Image
I think there's a kind of confidence I often feel when I'm writing that I don't feel when I'm in the world,… — Karen Russell Copy Share Image
“Wait, that’s your idea? That’s your expert advice? You’re going to tell these novelists to just keep going? You’re going to tell… — Karen Russell Copy Share Image
I remember writing these terrible poems when I was, like, nine and discovered alliteration. — Karen Russell Copy Share Image
The very best moment of writing 'Swamplandia!' was when I figured out what the ending should be. And even though I changed… — 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… — Karen Russell Copy Share Image
“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
