Top 450 Bonnie Garmus Quotes (2026 Update)
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151. “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

152. “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

153. “It was a form of naivete, he thought, the way she continued to believe that all it took to get through life was grit. Sure, grit was critical, but it also took luck, and if luck wasn’t available, then help. Everyone needed help.”

— Bonnie Garmus

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

— Bonnie Garmus

155. “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.”

— Bonnie Garmus

156. “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

157. “Stella Pajunas.”

— Bonnie Garmus

158. “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

159. “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

160. “She tried to talk with them, but each gave her the cold shoulder in their own way, and later, as she was walking by the lounge, she overheard the same few grousing about her – about how she took herself so seriously, how she thought she was better than any of them, how she’d refused dates from all of them, even the single men.”

— Bonnie Garmus

161. “Say what you want about the human race, their capacity for kindness was what – in Six-Thirty’s opinion – put them over the top, species-wise.”

— Bonnie Garmus

162. “One thing I’ve learned, Calvin: people will always yearn for a simple solution to their complicated problems.”

— Bonnie Garmus

163. “There was a lot of shop talk from the others about how chemical bonds were formed, broken, then re-formed following something called an “effective collision.”

— Bonnie Garmus

164. “The problem with being a minister was how many times a day he had to lie. This was because people needed constant reassurance that things were okay or were going to be okay instead of the more obvious reality that things were bad and were only going to get worse.”

— Bonnie Garmus

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

— Bonnie Garmus

166. “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

167. “But what he realized through his self-study was that the complexity of chemistry went well beyond birthright, that it twisted and turned in sometimes heartless ways. And thus he had to live with the knowledge that not only had this other father discarded him – without even meeting him – but that chemistry itself had spawned the grudge he could neither hide nor outgrow.”

— Bonnie Garmus

168. “Everyone dies,” Mad pointed out. “But not everyone pays their taxes.”

— Bonnie Garmus

169. “The results didn’t matter at all. Amanda was his daughter and he was her father. He loved her with all his heart. Biology was overrated.”

— Bonnie Garmus

170. “Yes, living with Mr. Sloane was revolting, but Harriet was not completely repelled by his physical defects – she shed herself. Rather, it was his low-grade stupidity she abhorred – his dull, opinionated, know-nothing charmless complexion; his ignorance, bigotry, vulgarity, insensitivity; and above all, his wholly undeserved faith in himself. Like most stupid people, Mr. Sloane wasn’t smart enough to know just how stupid he was.”

— Bonnie Garmus

171. “And when you were their age you envisioned yourself becoming – ” “A loving wife and mother.” “No, seriously – ” “An open-heart surgeon,” the woman said before she.”

— Bonnie Garmus

172. “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

173. “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

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

— Bonnie Garmus

175. “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

176. “Really?” she said, surprised. “I think it lets us off the hook. I think it teaches us that nothing is really our fault; that something or someone else is pulling the strings; that ultimately, we’re not to blame for the way things are; that to improve things, we should pray. But the truth is, we are very much responsible for.”

— Bonnie Garmus

177. “She’d just finished telling Six-Thirty that fiction was problematic. People were always insisting they knew what it meant, even if the writer hadn’t meant that at all, and even if what they thought it meant had no actual meaning.”

— Bonnie Garmus

178. “I wanted to know about your relationship with Evans.” “How is that your business?” Again, he felt the weight of the dog’s eyes on him. I have mapped and memorized the location of your carotid artery.”

— Bonnie Garmus

179. “Elizabeth’s eyes narrowed. She did not care for people who made assumptions based on what she felt were long-outdated visual clues, and she also didn’t care for men who believed, even if she had been a secretary, that being a secretary meant she was incapable of understanding words beyond.”

— Bonnie Garmus

180. “Walter, don’t you find it interesting that people even use that term ‘act of God’? Considering that most want to believe that God is about lambs and love and babies in mangers, and yet this same so-called benevolent being smites innocent people left and right, indicating an anger management problem – maybe even manic depression. In a psychiatric ward, such a patient would be subjected to electroshock therapy. Which.”

— Bonnie Garmus

181. “Normal isn’t like weather; you can’t expect normal. You can’t even make normal. From what I can tell, normal may not exist.”

— Bonnie Garmus

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

— Bonnie Garmus

183. “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

184. “You and Evans rowed in my eight a few times – do you remember? About seven months ago. Good rows, too. But then you never came back. Why was that?” She looked at him, surprised. “Oh, forgive me,” Dr. Mason said in a rush. “I’m so sorry. Of course. Evans. Evans died. I apologize.”

— Bonnie Garmus

185. “And not in who we are or what we’re made of, but rather, who we’re capable of becoming.”

— Bonnie Garmus

186. “It was Harriet who told me to use that moment to reconnect with my own needs, to identify my true direction, to recommit.”

— Bonnie Garmus

187. “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

188. “Actually, when you think about it, rowing is almost exactly like raising kids. Both require patience, endurance, strength, and commitment. And neither allow us to see where we’re going – only where we’ve been. I find that.”

— Bonnie Garmus

189. “And on those rare occasions when she wasn’t defined by others’ actions, then she was dismissed out of hand as either a lightweight or a gold digger based on the thing she hated most about herself.”

— Bonnie Garmus

190. “Just as people have a bad habit of dismissing others’ problems and tragedies, so too did they have a bad habit of not appreciating what they have.”

— Bonnie Garmus

191. “She’d faced tough things before. She would weather what came. But weathering is called weathering for a reason. It erodes.”

— Bonnie Garmus

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

— Bonnie Garmus

193. “Cooking, like surgery, requires concentration. Anyway, Phil Lebensmal wants me to act as if the people I’m speaking to are dolts. I won’t do it, Harriet, I won’t perpetuate the myth that women are incompetent. If they cancel me, so be it. I’ll do something else.”

— Bonnie Garmus

194. “And the fact that she pretends to be Madeline’s friend to get her lunch,” she continued, “is absolutely reprehensible.” “Wh-who are you again?” stammered Walter. “Elizabeth Zott!” she barked back. “Madeline Zott’s mother!” Walter nodded, trying to understand. As a longtime producer of afternoon television, he knew drama. But this? He continued to stare. She was stunning. He was literally stunned by her. Was she auditioning for something.”

— Bonnie Garmus

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

— Bonnie Garmus

196. “That tiny amount is mostly act-of-God stuff – earthquakes, tsunamis – things we can’t possibly anticipate because the science isn’t there yet.” She paused, straightening her belt. “Walter, don’t you find it interesting that people even use that term ‘act of God’? Considering that most want to believe that God is about lambs and love and babies in mangers, and yet this.”

— Bonnie Garmus

197. “How dare you,” he said, his voice rising. “A woman telling me what pregnancy is. Who do you think you are?”

— Bonnie Garmus

198. “But Madeline had been reading since age three and, now, at age five, was already through most of Dickens.”

— Bonnie Garmus

199. “Walter Pine had been in television from almost the very beginning.”

— Bonnie Garmus

200. “Humans need reassurance, they need to know others survived in hard times. And unlike other species which do a better job of learning from their mistakes, humans require constant threats and reminders to be nice.”

— Bonnie Garmus