Top 450 Bonnie Garmus Quotes (2024 Update)
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101. “He’d not had much experience with families, but he’d always assumed that being part of one was important: a prerequisite for stability, what one relied on to get through the hard times. He’d never really considered that a family could actually be the hard times.”

— Bonnie Garmus

102. “Bridesmaids’ dresses are designed to make the women in them look unappealing; that way the bride looks better than usual. It’s an accepted practice, a basic defensive strategy with biological roots. You see this sort of thing in nature all the time.”

— Bonnie Garmus

103. “Elizabeth once read that 98 percent of the things people worry about never come true. But what, she wondered, about the 2 percent that do? And who came up with that figure? Two percent seemed suspiciously low. She’d believe 10 percent – even 20. In her own life it was probably closer to 50.”

— Bonnie Garmus

104. “As any non-rower can tell you, rowers are not fun. This is because rowers only ever want to talk about rowing.”

— Bonnie Garmus

105. “You know very well women do not continue to work when pregnant. But you-you’re not only with child, you’re unwed. It’s disgraceful.”

— Bonnie Garmus

106. “She looked back incredulously. “Sometimes I think,” she said slowly, “that if a man were to spend a day being a woman in America, he wouldn’t make it past noon.” The woman on the other side of him tapped his knee. “Prepare for a revolt.”

— Bonnie Garmus

107. “Besides, even if he knew every word in the English language, he still wouldn’t have any idea what to say. Because what does one say to someone who’s lost everything?”

— Bonnie Garmus

108. “One would think the ignorant would die off sooner,” Elizabeth continued. “But Darwin overlooked the fact that the ignorant rarely forget to eat.”

— Bonnie Garmus

109. “Challenge yourself lades. Use the laws of chemistry and change the status quo.”

— Bonnie Garmus

110. “There’s nothing more irritating than witnessing someone else’s unfair share of happiness, and to some of their colleagues at Hastings Research Institute, Elizabeth and Calvin had an unfair share. He, because he was brilliant; she, because she was beautiful. When they became a couple, their unfair shares automatically doubled, making it really unfair.”

— Bonnie Garmus

111. “Men and women are both human beings. And as humans, we’re by-products of our upbringings, victims of our lackluster educational systems, and choosers of our behaviors. In short, the reduction of women to something less than men, and the elevation of men to something more than women, is not biological: it’s cultural.”

— Bonnie Garmus

112. “Worse, he’d just learned that English wasn’t the only human language. Elizabeth revealed that there were hundreds, maybe thousands of others, and that no human spoke them all. In fact, most people spoke only one – maybe two – unless they were something called Swiss and spoke eight. No wonder people didn’t understand animals. They could barely understand each other.”

— Bonnie Garmus

113. “In addition to the receptive learning technique, Elizabeth had been reading aloud to him, long ago replacing simple children’s books with far weightier texts. “Reading aloud promotes brain development,” she’d told him, quoting a research study she’d read. “It also speeds vocabulary accumulation.” It seemed to be working because, according to her notebook, he now knew 391 words.”

— Bonnie Garmus

114. “I’m a chemist. Not a woman chemist. A chemist. A damn good one!” “Well, I’m a personnel expert! An almost-psychologist,” Frask shouted. “Almost-psychologist?” “Shut up.” “No really,” Zott said. “Almost?” “I didn’t have a chance to finish, okay? What about you?”

— Bonnie Garmus

115. “When it came to equality, 1952 was a real disappointment. “You have to apologize to.”

— Bonnie Garmus

116. “Humans, Six-Thirty noticed, had a tendency to overcomplicate.”

— Bonnie Garmus

117. “It is not an exaggeration to say that when Elizabeth Zott finished cooking, an entire nation sat down to eat.”

— Bonnie Garmus

118. “Blindside,” Wilson repeated. “You know. Like the way you blindsided us by misappropriating Parker Foundation funds. Or the way you blindsided Miss Zott – or should I say Mr. Zott? – when you stole her work.”

— Bonnie Garmus

119. “Mrs. Mudford. Room six. I realize she might be a little more advanced than some of the other children, but I doubt she’ll be the only one reading Zane Grey, don’t you?”

— Bonnie Garmus

120. “Let’s say supper at six, then,” Elizabeth said, not wanting her to go. “The home lab. Everyone – you, Wilson, Mad, Sixty-Thirty, me, Harriet, Walter. You’ll need to meet Wakely and Mason at some point, too. The whole family.” Avery Parker, her face suddenly familiar with Calvin’s smile, turned back and took Elizabeth’s hands in her own. “The whole family,” she said.”

— Bonnie Garmus

121. “It’s one thing to be brilliant, but to be brilliant without opportunity – that was something else.”

— Bonnie Garmus

122. “Stella Pajunas.”

— Bonnie Garmus

123. “Do not allow your talents to lie dormant, ladies. Design your own future. When you go home today, ask yourself what you will change. And then get started.”

— Bonnie Garmus

124. “What’s wrong with believing in ourselves? Anyway, if stories must be used, why not rely on a fable or fairy tale? Aren’t they just as valid a vehicle for teaching morality? Except maybe better? Because no one has to pretend to believe that the fables and tales are true?”

— Bonnie Garmus

125. “God was big on burdens, and He made sure everyone got one.”

— Bonnie Garmus

126. “People often underestimate what a pregnant woman is capable of, but people always underestimate what a grieving pregnant woman is capable of.”

— Bonnie Garmus

127. “When Calvin claimed he held no grudges and hated no one, he only meant it in that way that some people say they forget to eat. Meaning he was lying.”

— Bonnie Garmus

128. “But as the years wore on, he began to feel like he was the prisoner permanently assigned to digging the escape tunnel. At the end of the day, as the other prisoners scrambled over him to freedom, he stayed behind with the spoon.”

— Bonnie Garmus

129. “If Mozart had been born to a poor family in Bombay instead of a cultured one in Salzburg, would he have composed Symphony no. 36 in C? Not a chance.”

— Bonnie Garmus

130. “Did you see that?” the coxswain shouted angrily at his crew. “Did you see how she gets length without overreaching?”

— Bonnie Garmus

131. “Because while musical prodigies are always celebrated, early readers aren’t.”

— Bonnie Garmus

132. “She thought about the note her mother had left in her lunch box that morning. The librarian is the most important educator in school. What she doesn’t know, she can find out. This is not an opinion; it’s a fact. Do not share this fact with Mrs. Mudford. But.”

— Bonnie Garmus

133. “Pregnancy is a normal condition. It is not disgraceful. It is how every human being starts.” “How dare you,” he said, his voice rising. “A woman telling me what pregnancy is. Who do you think you are?” She seemed surprised by the question. “A woman,” she said.”

— Bonnie Garmus

134. “The words fit snugly, like laces knotted twice.”

— Bonnie Garmus

135. “They lay silently, both wading in the misery of their pasts.”

— Bonnie Garmus

136. “Failures, by their very nature, had a way of being unforgettable.”

— Bonnie Garmus

137. “I have a history of not fitting in, Phil, but I’m starting to think that not fitting in is why the show works.”

— Bonnie Garmus

138. “You’re a scientist,” he said. “Your job is to question things – to search for answers. But sometimes – and I know this for a fact – there just aren’t any.”

— Bonnie Garmus

139. “She wanted to think there was some iron-clad bond that connected her to them for life, but that’s not how it worked. Families required constant maintenance.”

— Bonnie Garmus

140. “Which is another problem,” Mudford said. “Her height is making the boys feel bad.”

— Bonnie Garmus

141. “But things will be fine. Maybe even better than fine. A dog, an erg, two seat. Excellent.”

— Bonnie Garmus

142. “It’s me, Miss Zott. Mrs. Sloane. I peeked in and saw you slumped on the floor. I knocked and knocked but you didn’t respond, so I pushed open the door. I wanted to make sure you’re all right.”

— Bonnie Garmus

143. “They either wanted to control her, touch her, dominate her, silence her, correct her, or tell her what to do. She didn’t understand why they couldn’t just treat her as a fellow.”

— Bonnie Garmus

144. “Because there are naked pictures?” “No!” he said. “No, no – it’s nothing like that. It’s just that sometimes I need a laugh. There’s not much humor in my job.” “Why?” The reverend hesitated. “Because God isn’t very funny, I guess.”

— Bonnie Garmus

145. “Humans naturally want to belong – it’s part of our biology. But our society makes us feel that we’re never good enough to belong.”

— Bonnie Garmus

146. “I’ve never understood why when women marry, they’re expected to trade in their old names like used cars, losing their last and sometimes even their first – Mrs. John Adams! Mrs. Abe Lincoln! – as if their previous identities had just been twenty-odd-year placeholders before they became actual people. Mrs. Peter Dickman. It’s a life sentence.”

— Bonnie Garmus

147. “On top of his grudge holding, he had a reputation for impatience. Like so many brilliant people, Calvin just couldn’t understand how no one else got it. He was also an introvert, which isn’t really a flaw but.”

— Bonnie Garmus

148. “But she had learned that underemployment was worse. Not only did her paycheck reflect her lowly status, but her brain hurt from inactivity. And yet despite the fact that her colleagues knew she could run intellectual circles around them, she was expected to rah-rah whatever minor accomplishments they churned out.”

— Bonnie Garmus

149. “Why aren’t you a PhD, Zott?” Frask shot back. Elizabeth hardened, and without meaning to, revealed a fact about herself that she’d never told anyone other than a police officer. “Because I was sexually violated by my thesis advisor, then kicked out of the doctoral program,” she shouted. “You?”

— Bonnie Garmus

150. “Because quite often the past belongs only in the past.” “Why?” “Because the past is the only place it makes sense.”

— Bonnie Garmus