Top 450 Bonnie Garmus Quotes (2026 Update)
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101. “Too many brilliant minds are kept from scientific research thanks to ignorant biases like gender and race. It infuriates me and it should infuriate you. Science has big problems to solve: famine, disease, extinction. And those who purposefully close the door to others using self-serving, outdated cultural notions are not only dishonest, they’re knowingly lazy. Hastings Research Institute is full of them.”

— Bonnie Garmus

102. “In the past she was either the offspring of an arsonist, the daughter of a serial wife, the sister of a hanged homosexual, or the graduate student of a renowned lecher.”

— Bonnie Garmus

103. “The tombstone was supposed to have read, “Your days are numbered. Use them to throw open the windows of your soul to the sun,” a quote from Marcus Aurelius, but the tombstone was small and the engraver had made the first part too big and had run out of room.”

— Bonnie Garmus

104. “Except her grudges were mainly reserved for a patriarchal society founded on the idea that women were less. Less capable. Less intelligent. Less inventive.”

— Bonnie Garmus

105. “Afternoon Depression Zone.”

— Bonnie Garmus

106. “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

107. “I don’t have hopes,” Mad explained, studying the address. “I have faith.” He looked at her in surprise. “Well, that’s a funny word to hear coming from you.” “How come?” “Because,” he said, “well, you know. Religion is based on faith.”

— Bonnie Garmus

108. “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

109. “It’s just that we tend to treat pregnancy as the most common condition in the world – as ordinary as stubbing a toe – when the truth is, it’s like getting hit by a truck. Although obviously a truck causes less damage.”

— Bonnie Garmus

110. “Plus, getting back in a boat will make you feel so much better. We all,” he said, thinking of his row that morning, “will feel so much better. Ask your neighbor. See if she won’t watch the baby.” “At four thirty in the morning?” “This is what is so unsung about rowing,” Dr. Mason said, turning to leave. “It happens at a time when no one’s really that busy.”

— Bonnie Garmus

111. “What did I tell you? Your bond with that boy is hydrogen only. When are you going to wake up and smell the ions?”

— Bonnie Garmus

112. “Holding an egg in the palm of her hand, she turned to him. “Here’s a tip, Six-Thirty: never crack eggs on the side of a bowl – it increases the chance of shell fragments. Better to bring a sharp, thin knife down on the egg as if you’re cracking a whip. See?” she said, as the egg’s contents slipped into the bowl.”

— Bonnie Garmus

113. “I’m an atheist, Mr. Roth,” she said, sighing heavily. “Actually, a humanist.”

— 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. “I’m an atheist, Mr. Roth,” she said, sighing heavily. “Actually, a humanist. But I have to admit, some days the human race makes me sick.”

— Bonnie Garmus

116. “From across the room, Elizabeth straightened her papers, then rose. “Sorry to cut this short, Calvin, but I have a meeting.” “A meeting?” Calvin said, as if she’d just announced she was attending an execution. “If you worked in my lab, you’d never have to go to meetings.”

— Bonnie Garmus

117. “She didn’t want children – she knew this about herself – but she also knew that plenty of other women did want children and a career. And what was wrong with that? Nothing. It was exactly what men got.”

— Bonnie Garmus

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

— Bonnie Garmus

119. “She couldn’t remember how soon into their marriage she began to realize she wasn’t in love with him, nor he with her, but it was probably somewhere between the way he pronounced drawer “joor” and the way his thicket of body hair constantly detached itself like seeds from a dandelion head, blanketing their home.”

— Bonnie Garmus

120. “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

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

— Bonnie Garmus

122. “Elizabeth once read that 98 percent of the things people worry about never come true.”

— Bonnie Garmus

123. “Physical suffering, he’d long ago learned, bonds people in a way that everyday life can’t.”

— Bonnie Garmus

124. “Sure, grit was critical, but it also took luck, and if luck wasn’t available, then help. Everyone needed help.”

— Bonnie Garmus

125. “Naked and the Dead.”

— Bonnie Garmus

126. “I don’t have hopes,” Mad explained, studying the address. “I have faith.” He looked at her in surprise. “Well, that’s a funny word to hear coming from you.” “How come?” “Because,” he said, “well, you know. Religion is based on faith.” “But you realize,” she said carefully, as if not to embarrass him further, “that faith isn’t based on religion. Right?”

— Bonnie Garmus

127. “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

128. “They were all strangers, each living in a far-off city with lives and children of their own. 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

129. “You make a fair point, Evans,” Wakely wrote back. “But people need to believe in something bigger than themselves.” “Why?” Calvin pressed. “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

130. “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

131. “As he bent down to tie his laces, his chest filled with something new. Was it gratitude? He, the early orphaned, never-before-loved, unattractive Calvin Evans, had, by hook or by crook, found this woman, this dog, this research, this row, this run, Jack. It was all so much more than he’d ever expected, so much more than he ever deserved.”

— Bonnie Garmus

132. “But weathering is called weathering for a reason: it erodes.”

— Bonnie Garmus

133. “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

134. “Because humans are animals. Technically. Although sometimes I think the animals we consider animals are far more advanced than the animals we are but don’t consider ourselves to be.”

— Bonnie Garmus

135. “Stella Pajunas.”

— Bonnie Garmus

136. “After she left, Calvin clasped his hands together in a silent fit of glee and flipped on the hi-fi, dropping the needle on “Sunny Side of the Street.” For a second time, he’d saved the person he loved the most, and the best part was, she didn’t know.”

— Bonnie Garmus

137. “According to Harriet, men were a world apart from women. They required coddling, they had fragile egos, they couldn’t allow a woman intelligence or skill if it exceeded their own.”

— Bonnie Garmus

138. “And then there was the illogical art of female friendship itself, the way it seemed to demand an ability to both keep and reveal secrets using precise timing. Whenever she moved to a new town, girls would take her aside at Sunday school and breathlessly confide their crushes on certain boys.”

— Bonnie Garmus

139. “If relationships are a puzzle, then theirs was solved from the get-go – as if someone shook out the box and watched from above as each separate piece landed exactly right, slipping one into the other, fully interlocked, into a picture that made perfect sense.”

— Bonnie Garmus

140. “His wife had recently left him, saying that he didn’t respect her job as a housewife and mother. But being a housewife and mother wasn’t really a job, was it? More like a role. Anyway, she was gone.”

— Bonnie Garmus

141. “Many believe protein comes from meat, eggs, and fish,” she was saying, “but protein originates in plants, and plants are what the biggest, strongest animals in the world eat.”

— Bonnie Garmus

142. “She knew people in high-stress jobs often longed for a simpler position – something that didn’t require heart or brainpower; something that didn’t prey on their sagging spirits at three in the morning. But she learned underemployment was worse. Not only did her paycheck reflect her lowly status, but her brain hurt from inactivity.”

— Bonnie Garmus

143. “Imagine if all men took women seriously. Education would change. The workforce would revolutionize.”

— Bonnie Garmus

144. “Nature works on a higher intellectual plane. We can learn more, we can go further, but to accomplish this, we must throw open the doors. Too many brilliant minds are kept from scientific research thanks to ignorant biases like gender and race. It infuriates me and it should infuriate you. Science has big problems to solve: famine, disease, extinction.”

— Bonnie Garmus

145. “Lying is a sin, but brag-lying? There’s nothing worse.”

— Bonnie Garmus

146. “Imagine if all men took women seriously. Education would change. The workforce would revolutionize. Marriage counsellors would go out of business. Do you see my point?”

— Bonnie Garmus

147. “She would weather what came. But weathering is called weathering for a reason: it erodes.”

— Bonnie Garmus

148. “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.”

— Bonnie Garmus

149. “Take the helm. Steer. When in doubt, pretend.”

— Bonnie Garmus

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

— Bonnie Garmus