Karen Thompson Walker Quotes

Quotes about:

• How much sweeter life would be if it all happened in reverse, if, after decades of disappointments, you finally arrived at an age when you had conceded nothing, when everything was possible.

  Karen Thompson Walker

  Disappointment, Age, Would Be

  Karen Thompson Walker (2012). “The Age of Miracles”, p.82, Simon and Schuster

  44 Copy quote

• This was middle school, the age of miracles, the time when kids shot up three inches over the summer, when breasts bloomed from nothing, when voices dipped and dove. Our first flaws were emerging, but they were being corrected. Blurry vision could be fixed invisibly with the magic of the contact lens. Crooked teeth were pulled straight with braces. Spotty skin could be chemically cleared. Some girls were turning beautiful. A few boys were growing tall.

  Karen Thompson Walker

  Beautiful, Girl, Summer

  Karen Thompson Walker (2014). “The Age of Miracles”, p.43, Simon and Schuster

  15 Copy quote

• I first started writing fiction in college because I was attracted to beautiful sentences. I loved to read them. I wanted to write them.

  Karen Thompson Walker

  Beautiful, Writing, College

  16 Copy quote

• I just hope that readers and publishers continue to appreciate good writing and good storytelling in all their various forms. And I hope that people continue to read books, even though we have so many other options for entertainment.

  Karen Thompson Walker

  Book, Writing, People

  4 Copy quote

• A good story, just like a good sentence, does more than one job at once. That's what literature is: a story that does more than tell a story, a story that manages to reflect in some way the multilayered texture of life itself.

  Karen Thompson Walker

  Jobs, Doe, Stories

  4 Copy quote

• Just like all great stories, our fears focus our attention on a question that is as important in life as it is in literature: What will happen next?

  Karen Thompson Walker

  Motivation, Inspiration, Focus

  "What fear can teach us". TEDGlobal Talk, www.ted.com. June 2012.

  6 Copy quote

• Who knows how fast a second-guess can travel? Who has ever measured the exact speed of regret?

  Karen Thompson Walker

  Regret, Speed, Know How

  Karen Thompson Walker (2012). “The Age of Miracles: A Novel”, p.40, Random House

  4 Copy quote

• It's really hard to get a book published, even a good book, but the better the book is the better chance it has of eventually catching someone's attention.

  Karen Thompson Walker

  Book, Attention, Chance

  "The Writing Life: An Interview with Karen Thompson Walker". Hazel & Wren Interview, www.hazelandwren.com. July 24, 2012.

  4 Copy quote

• I guess it never is what you worry over that comes to pass in the end. The real catastrophes are always different—unimagined, unprepared for, unknown.

  Karen Thompson Walker

  Real, Worry, Different

  Karen Thompson Walker (2014). “The Age of Miracles”, p.32, Simon and Schuster

  4 Copy quote

• I kept quiet, but the knowledge gathered like a storm. I could see the future: My father wasn't coming back. And this one fact seemed to point to other facts and others still: Love frays and humans fail, time passes, eras end.

  Karen Thompson Walker

  Father, Storm, Eras

  Karen Thompson Walker (2012). “The Age of Miracles: A Novel”, p.219, Random House

  8 Copy quote

• I like to edit my sentences as I write them. I rearrange a sentence many times before moving on to the next one. For me, that editing process feels like a form of play, like a puzzle that needs solving, and it's one of the most satisfying parts of writing.

  Karen Thompson Walker

  Moving, Writing, Editing

  4 Copy quote

• My goal was just to tell the unlikely story in a way that would feel as convincing as possible.

  Karen Thompson Walker

  Goal, Stories, Way

  4 Copy quote

• An editor is like a professional reader, and as I became a better reader, I also became a better writer.

  Karen Thompson Walker

  Editors, Reader

  "The Writing Life: An Interview with Karen Thompson Walker". Hazel & Wren Interview, www.hazelandwren.com. July 24, 2012.

  4 Copy quote

• I really believe that fiction functions best when stories are allowed to develop in an organic way, so I didn't set out to deliver a specific message.

  Karen Thompson Walker

  Believe, Fiction, Stories

  4 Copy quote

• Sometimes death is proof of life. Sometimes decay points out a certain verve.

  Karen Thompson Walker

  Decay, Sometimes, Proof

  Karen Thompson Walker (2014). “The Age of Miracles”, p.203, Simon and Schuster

  4 Copy quote

• To be a good editor or a good writer, I think you really need to be a great reader first.

  Karen Thompson Walker

  Thinking, Editors, Needs

  4 Copy quote

• I've become a collector of stories about unlikely returns: the sudden reappearance of the long-lost son, the father found, the lovers reunited after forty years. Once in awhile, a letter does fall behind a post office desk and lie there for years before it's finally discovered and delivered to the rightful address. The seemingly brain-dead sometimes wake up and start talking. I'm always on the lookout for proof that what is done can sometimes be undone.

  Karen Thompson Walker

  Lying, Father, Fall

  Karen Thompson Walker (2012). “The Age of Miracles”, p.237, Simon and Schuster

  6 Copy quote

• Sometimes I think I might not have written 'The Age of Miracles' if I hadn't grown up in California, if I hadn't been exposed to its very particular blend of beauty and disaster, of danger and denial.

  Karen Thompson Walker

  Thinking, California, Miracle

  6 Copy quote

• But the past is long, and the future is short.

  Karen Thompson Walker

  Past, Long

  Karen Thompson Walker (2014). “The Age of Miracles”, p.237, Simon and Schuster

  4 Copy quote

• Working as an editor was like being a professional reader, and the better I became at reading the better I became at writing.

  Karen Thompson Walker

  Reading, Writing, Editors

  4 Copy quote

• To some degree we all live with uncertainty. We have no control over the future. Yet we carry on, we persevere, because, I guess, it's the way we're made.

  Karen Thompson Walker

  Degrees, Way, Persevere

  4 Copy quote

• Our fears are an amazing gift of the imagination, a kind of everyday clairvoyance, a way of glimpsing what might be the future when there's still time to influence how that future will play out.

  Karen Thompson Walker

  Fear, Play, Imagination

  "What fear can teach us". TEDGlobal Talk, www.ted.com. June 2012.

  4 Copy quote

• Sometimes the saddest stories take the fewest words.

  Karen Thompson Walker

  Stories, Sometimes, Saddest

  Karen Thompson Walker (2014). “The Age of Miracles”, p.234, Simon and Schuster

  4 Copy quote

• With a little persuasion, any familiar thing can turn abnormal in the mind. Here's a thought experiment. Consider this brutal bit of magic. A human grows a second human in a space inside her belly; she grows a second heart and a second brain, second eyes and second limbs, a complete set of second body parts as if for use as spares, and then, after almost a year, she expels that second screaming being out of her belly and into the world, alive. Bizarre, isn't it?

  Karen Thompson Walker

  Heart, Eye, Years

  Karen Thompson Walker (2012). “The Age of Miracles: A Novel”, p.94, Random House

  4 Copy quote

• I left my job in the fall, and now I can set my life up around writing instead of squeezing writing into my day; it's amazing to have that time, and I feel very lucky.

  Karen Thompson Walker

  Jobs, Fall, Writing

  4 Copy quote

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