If you're short on time, that would be the two-word version of our story: we fell. Karen Russell More Quotes by Karen Russell More Quotes From Karen Russell It was sad and fierce all at once, alive with a lonely purity. Karen Russell fierce alive lonely My mom says I'm destined to be the sort of man who uses big words but pronounces them incorrectly. Karen Russell mom use men 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 grief flower mother Mythology is a really beautiful vocabulary passed down through centuries that helps us understand the perennial parts of our nature. Karen Russell vocabulary helping beautiful In short stories there's more permission to be elliptical. You can have image-logic, or it's almost like a poem in that you can come to a lot of meanings within a short space. Karen Russell insightful space stories But if you kept thinking about a fight you’d lost, Mom said, you were programming yourself to lose again. Karen Russell fighting mom thinking I tended to be drawn to the weirder, darker stuff. Horror and sci-fi anthologies. Karen Russell sci-fi horror stuff 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 scene from a tiny sunken world ... I have never been the prophet of my own past before. It makes me wonder how the healthy dreamers can bear to sleep at all, if sleep means that you have to peer into that sinkhole by yourself. ... I had almost forgotten this occipital sorrow, the way you are so alone with the things you see in dreams. Karen Russell dream sleep mean And I do think that great fiction, even when it's comedic, has an urgency or an inevitability to it, a sense that the writer absolutely had to write this particular story in this way. Karen Russell writing fiction thinking Somehow I wasn't adding up right anymore. My parts weren't summing into myself. Karen Russell I had been eagerly waiting just such a disaster. Storms, wolves, snakebite, floods-these are the occasions to find out how your father sees you, how strong and necessary he thinks you are. Karen Russell strong father thinking I swim with all my strength. No superhuman surge, or pony heroics; it's just me at my most desperate. Karen Russell ponies desperate swim Myth continues to be a valuable way to understand parts of our nature that we can't quantify. Karen Russell myth valuable way Tin House magazine is a port in the storm for people who love language. It is unfailingly excellent, and committed to publishing new voices in addition to delivering freaky-fresh work from established writers. Karen Russell voice house people Could we betray our parents by going back to them? Karen Russell betray parent When I was younger I used to lock myself in the bathroom and read in the dry tub. I was also a fan of the 'shoe closet.' Reading felt thrilling and illicit and deeply private to me, and I felt vulnerable doing it in public. Karen Russell shoes fans reading 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 appear. Karen Russell writing might fall I moved to New York with the derangement of love. I was writing all these terrible stories, but I had never been happier. Karen Russell new-york stories writing Given the brevity of our time here, it does seem likely that our species, too, must have at best a blinkered understanding of the shape of things, the import of certain events and what distinguishes "good" from "bad" luck. Karen Russell events understanding luck I am extremely close to my brother, Kent, and my sister, Lauren, who have been remarkably understanding about all of my weird sibling tales. Karen Russell sibling understanding brother
