Top 450 Bonnie Garmus Quotes (2024 Update)
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151. “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

152. “As any non-rower can tell you, rowers are not fun. This is because rowers only ever want to talk about rowing. Get two or more rowers in a room and the conversation goes from normal topics like work or weather to long, pointless stories about boats, blisters, oars, grips, ergs, feathers, workouts, catches, releases, recoveries, splits, seats, strokes, slides, starts, settles, sprints, and whether the water was really “flat” or not.”

— Bonnie Garmus

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

— Bonnie Garmus

154. “I’m speaking of fixing us, Mr. Roth – our mistakes. 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.”

— Bonnie Garmus

155. “She looked like a cross between a hotel maid and a bomb squad expert.”

— Bonnie Garmus

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

— Bonnie Garmus

157. “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

158. “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

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

— Bonnie Garmus

160. “Because while stupid people may not know they’re stupid because they’re stupid, surely unattractive people must know they’re unattractive because of mirrors.”

— Bonnie Garmus

161. “Elizabeth hadn’t had a pet before and she wasn’t sure she had one now. Six-Thirty wasn’t human, but he seemed to possess a humanity that far surpassed what she’d found in most people.”

— Bonnie Garmus

162. “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

163. “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

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

— Bonnie Garmus

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

— Bonnie Garmus

166. “What I find interesting about rowing,” Dr. Mason was saying, “is that it’s always done backwards. It’s almost as if the sport itself is trying to teach us not to get ahead of ourselves.”

— Bonnie Garmus

167. “That’s when someone in the audience asked for an example of an ineffective collision – something that lacked energy and never changed, but still had a big effect. Evans had leaned into his microphone. “Religion,” he said. Then he got up and left.”

— Bonnie Garmus

168. “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

169. “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

170. “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

171. “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

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

— Bonnie Garmus

173. “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

174. “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

175. “Families required constant maintenance.”

— Bonnie Garmus

176. “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

177. “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

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

— Bonnie Garmus

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

— Bonnie Garmus

180. “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

181. “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

182. “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

183. “She’d recently read about some country where both parents worked and took part in raising the children. Where was that, again? Sweden? She couldn’t remember. But the upshot was, it functioned very well. Productivity was higher; families were stronger.”

— Bonnie Garmus

184. “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

185. “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

186. “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

187. “Calvin was a brilliant man, but if he had one flaw, it was his ability to hold a grudge.”

— Bonnie Garmus

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

— Bonnie Garmus

189. “When we make food, we don’t just create something good to eat – we create something that provides energy to our cells, something that sustains life.”

— Bonnie Garmus

190. “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

191. “I see,” Wakely said, slowly unraveling her guilt. “Your brother saved you – so you think you should have been able to save him. Is that it?” She turned to look at him, her face hollow. “But Elizabeth, you couldn’t swim – that’s why he jumped in after you. You have to understand, suicide isn’t like that. Suicide is lot more complicated.” “Wakely,” she said. “He didn’t know how to swim either.”

— Bonnie Garmus

192. “I’m referring to atoms and molecules, Roth,” she explained. “The real rules that govern the physical world. When women understand these basic concepts, they can begin to see the false limits that have been created for them.”

— Bonnie Garmus

193. “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

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

— Bonnie Garmus

195. “Families aren’t meant to fit on trees. Maybe because people aren’t part of the plant kingdom – we’re part of the animal kingdom.”

— Bonnie Garmus

196. “She’d felt this way her entire life. She’d been defined not by what she did, but by what others had done... she was never just Elizabeth Zott.”

— Bonnie Garmus

197. “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

198. “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

199. “That’s one of the things we mean when we say it’s a free country. People are welcome to believe whatever they want as long as their beliefs don’t hurt others.”

— Bonnie Garmus

200. “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