It's funny to think about the uncanny reflexively, as an author who is perhaps gradually becoming aware of my own hidden secrets. Accessing that shadowy territory really requires the physical act of writing. Karen Russell More Quotes by Karen Russell More Quotes From Karen Russell I didn’t realize that one tragedy can beget another, and another — bright-eyed disasters flooding out of a death hole like bats out of a cave. Karen Russell bats caves tragedy "I'm not going anywhere," she told me that night. But until we are old ladies-a cypress age, a Sawtooth age-I will continue to link arms with her, in public, in private, in a panic of love. Karen Russell sister age night A single note, held in an amber suspension of time, like a charcoal drawing of Icarus falling. It was sad and fierce all at once, alive with a lonely purity. It went on and on, until my own lungs were burning. “What bird are you calling?” I asked finally, when I couldn’t stand it any longer. The Bird Man stopped whistling. He grinned, so that I could see all his pebbly teeth. “You. Karen Russell lonely men fall I hope that in my thirties I grow as a writer, push into new territory. Karen Russell new-territory territory grows It remains unbelievable to me that I have any readers beyond my own blood relations - it's a crazy, wild gift. Karen Russell unbelievable crazy blood The girl has a funny way of romanticizing things. Karen Russell girl way I spent most of my 20s with these alligator wrestlers in the swamps of South Florida. Karen Russell alligators swamps florida You don't want people to think you're just writing stories for children about a pig in a tutu. Karen Russell writing children thinking Regret is a pilgrimage back to the place where I was free to choose. Karen Russell pilgrimage regret America's great talent, I think, is to generate desires that would never have occurred, natively,... and to make those desires so painfully real that money becomes a fiction, an imaginary means to some concrete end. Karen Russell real mean thinking Sometimes it can feel like the whole globe is spinning with irredeemable losses, capricious natural disasters and crimes so outrageously evil they dismantle any attempt to solve or explain them. Karen Russell spinning evil loss In a way, I think we all want to look to that journalistic voice as a kind of global omniscience, a big eye to correct for our own limited purview: "Here's a realistic accounting of the world in which we live." Karen Russell voice eye thinking Once you figure out what's best for the story, take out the rest. Karen Russell figures stories Granana doesn't understand what the big deal is. She didn't cry at Olivia's funeral, and I doubt she even remembers Olivia's name. Granana lost, like, ninety-two million kids in childbirth. All of her brothers died in the war. She survived the Depression by stealing radish bulbs from her neighbors' garden, and fishing the elms for pigeons. Dad likes to remind us of this in a grave voice, as if it explained her jaundiced pitilessness: "Boys. Your grandmother ate pigeons." Karen Russell dad brother war No, I don’t have to tell a soul about this, I promised myself. When you are a kid, you don’t know yet that a secret, like an animal, can evolve. Like an animal, a secret can develop a self-preserving intelligence. Shaglike, mute and thick, a knowledge with a fur: your secret. Karen Russell self animal kids What passes for news is just morbid speculation or cartoonish screaming, followed by diaper commercials. Karen Russell diapers morbid news My older sister has entire kingdoms inside of her, and some of them are only accessible at certain seasons, in certain kinds of weather. One such melting occurs in summer rain, at midnight, during the vine-green breathing time right before sleep. You have to ask the right question, throw the right rope bridge, to get there-and then bolt across the chasm between you, before your bridge collapses. Karen Russell summer rain sleep There are certain prehistoric things that swim beyond extinction. Karen Russell extinction certain swim Pain collected into deep pockets and I was aware of this painbut somehow I could not seem to feel it. It was like a body-deafness. Karen Russell pockets pain body I think that's the real horror story for me, how little you can ever really know about your own motivations. How in the dark we all are about the concerns and the contents of our minds. Karen Russell motivation real dark
