Top 450 Bonnie Garmus Quotes (2025 Update)
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201. “How dare you,” he said, his voice rising. “A woman telling me what pregnancy is. Who do you think you are?”

— Bonnie Garmus

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

— Bonnie Garmus

203. “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

204. “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

205. “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

206. “Having a baby, Elizabeth realized, was a little like living with a visitor from a distant planet. There was a certain amount of give and take as the visitor learned your ways and you learned theirs, but gradually their ways faded and your ways stuck. Which she found regrettable. Because unlike adults, her visitor never tired of even the smallest discovery; always saw the magic in the extraordinary.”

— Bonnie Garmus

207. “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

208. “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

209. “Take a moment for yourself,” Harriet said. “Every day.”

— Bonnie Garmus

210. “He was also an introvert, which isn’t really a flaw but often manifests itself as standoffishness.”

— Bonnie Garmus

211. “But the truth is, we are very much responsible for the badness in the world. And we have the power to fix it.” “But surely you’re not suggesting that humans can fix the universe.”

— Bonnie Garmus

212. “But my dad isn’t in the past. He’s still my dad.”

— Bonnie Garmus

213. “Often the best way to deal with the bad,” she said, feeling for her pencil, “is to turn it on end – use it as a strength, refuse to allow the bad thing to define you. Fight it.”

— Bonnie Garmus

214. “Are you sad, honey?” Mad placed her small, chalky hands on either side of her mother’s face. “No. But you are.”

— Bonnie Garmus

215. “When a boat succeeds, it’s because the people in the boat have managed to set aside their petty differences and physical discrepancies and row as one. Perfect harmony – that was the goal. She’d once overheard Calvin telling someone at the boathouse that his Cambridge coach insisted that they even blink at the same time. To her surprise the guy nodded. “We had to file our toenails to the same length. Made a huge difference.”

— Bonnie Garmus

216. “I was fired,” Elizabeth said, her voice filling with fury. “Thanks, in part, to women like you,” she snapped, “women who pander – ” “I do not pander – ” “Who play along – ” “I do not play along – ” “Who seem to think their self-worth is based on what a man – ” “How dare you – ” “No!” Elizabeth shouted, pounding on the thin steel panel that separated them. “How dare you, Miss Frask! How dare you!”

— Bonnie Garmus

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

— Bonnie Garmus

218. “It was another thing Six-Thirty loved about her: her constant state of outrage.”

— Bonnie Garmus

219. “Elizabeth shook her head. “Our future happiness does not depend on whether or not we’re married, Calvin – at least not to me. I’m fully committed to you; marriage will not change that. As for who thinks what, it’s not just a handful of people: it’s society – particularly the society of scientific research. Everything I do will suddenly be in your name, as if you’d done.”

— Bonnie Garmus

220. “Did he sleep with other women? What a question. Didn’t everyone?”

— Bonnie Garmus

221. “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

222. “Yet here she was, a single mother, the lead scientist on what had to be the most unscientific experiment of all time: the raising of another human being. Every day she found parenthood like taking a test for which she had not studied. The questions were daunting and there wasn’t nearly enough multiple choice.”

— Bonnie Garmus

223. “It’s a thirty-minute, five-day-a-week lesson in life. And not in who we are or what we’re made of, but rather, who we’re capable of becoming.”

— Bonnie Garmus

224. “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

225. “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

226. “I used to tell myself every day was new. That anything could happen.”

— Bonnie Garmus

227. “Why do you think so many people believe in texts written thousands of years ago? And why does it seem the more supernatural, unprovable, improbable, and ancient the source of these texts, the more people believe them?”

— Bonnie Garmus

228. “People like my father preach love, but are filled with hate. Anyone who threatens their narrow beliefs can not be tolerated. They day my Mother caught my brother holding hands with another boy, that was it. After a year of hearing he was an aberration and didn’t deserve to live, he went out to the shed with a rope.”

— Bonnie Garmus

229. “Elizabeth Zott,” she said, moving past the stork to the receptionist. “For Dr. Mason.” “You’re late,” the receptionist said icily. “I’m five minutes early,” Elizabeth corrected, checking her watch. “There’s paperwork,” the woman informed her, handing over a clipboard. Husband’s place of work. Husband’s telephone number. Husband’s insurance. Husband’s age. Husband’s bank account number. “Who’s having the baby here?” she asked.”

— Bonnie Garmus

230. “Because as a producer, he was part of Phil’s management team, and that meant he was responsible for pushing Phil’s agenda while ignoring those who ultimately paid the price for.”

— Bonnie Garmus

231. “Still, he sensed that most people did not listen to their dogs. This was called ignoring. Or wait, no. Ignorance.”

— Bonnie Garmus

232. “We can learn more, we can go further, but to accomplish this, we must throw open the doors.”

— Bonnie Garmus

233. “The only excitement had come at the beginning but it had worn off like cheap nail polish.”

— Bonnie Garmus

234. “And there they were in the thick of it, the only living dead things.”

— Bonnie Garmus

235. “She knew being mad at him was unfair, but grief is like that: arbitrary.”

— Bonnie Garmus

236. “Your relatives can’t make you important or smart. They can’t make you you.” “What makes me me, then?” “What you choose to do. How you live your life.”

— Bonnie Garmus

237. “If there’s a truism in journalism, it’s this: it’s only when the reporter stops asking that the subject starts telling.”

— Bonnie Garmus

238. “They’re not missing, Calvin,” the priest said. “They’ve been removed.” “Why?” “Because they’re wrong, that’s why. Now open your books to page one hundred nineteen, boys. We’ll start with – ” “Evolution’s missing,” Calvin persisted, riffling through the pages.”

— Bonnie Garmus

239. “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

240. “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

241. “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.”

— Bonnie Garmus

242. “She was going to do something so revolutionary, so necessary, that her name – despite a never-ending legion of naysayers – would be immortalized.”

— Bonnie Garmus

243. “The bank manager was grim in his assessment of her situation. “Things will only get worse,” he warned. “As soon as your child is old enough, get her in school. Then find a job that actually pays. Or marry rich.”

— Bonnie Garmus

244. “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

245. “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

246. “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

247. “Meyers was also famous for being a lecher.”

— Bonnie Garmus

248. “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

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

— Bonnie Garmus

250. “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