Top 450 Bonnie Garmus Quotes (2026 Update)
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201. “We’ve accomplished a lot together in the last two years. Hundreds of meals, if you can believe that. But supper isn’t all we’ve made, ladies. We’ve also made history.”

— Bonnie Garmus

202. “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

203. “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

204. “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

205. “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

206. “Apparently, she tried to put in a request for The Naked and the Dead.”

— Bonnie Garmus

207. “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

208. “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

209. “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

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

— Bonnie Garmus

211. “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

212. “Not that you,” he said. “Not the ‘this is going to be really, really complicated’ you. Not the ‘far too many people do not appreciate the work and sacrifice that goes into being a wife, a mother, a woman’ you.”

— Bonnie Garmus

213. “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

214. “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

215. “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

216. “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

217. “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

218. “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

219. “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

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

— Bonnie Garmus

221. “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

222. “Some people are born bad apples,” he continued. “The result of parents who were bad themselves. But in your case, I don’t know where it comes from.” “What do you mean?” “I mean,” he said, leaning forward, “that I suspect you were born good but went bad. Rotted,” he said, “through a series of bad choices. Are you familiar with the idea that beauty comes from within?” “Yes.” “Well, your insides match your outward ugliness.” Calvin touched his swollen knuckles, trying not to cry.”

— Bonnie Garmus

223. “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

224. “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

225. “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

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

— Bonnie Garmus

227. “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

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

— Bonnie Garmus

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

— Bonnie Garmus

230. “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

231. “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

232. “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

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

— Bonnie Garmus

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

— Bonnie Garmus

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

— Bonnie Garmus

236. “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

237. “Families required constant maintenance.”

— Bonnie Garmus

238. “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

239. “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

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

— Bonnie Garmus

241. “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

242. “It was the seventh time that week someone felt compelled to inform her that her life was about to change and she was sick of it. She’d lost her job, her research, bladder control, a clear view of her toes, restful sleep, normal skin, a pain-free back, not to mention all the little assorted freedoms everyone else who is not pregnant takes for granted – like being able to fit behind a steering wheel. The only thing she’d gained? Weight.”

— Bonnie Garmus

243. “Chop the rosemary,” Elizabeth was saying quietly in the background, “with the sharpest knife you have. This minimizes damage to the plant and avoids excess electrolyte leakage.”

— Bonnie Garmus

244. “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

245. “Cooking is chemistry. And chemistry is life. Your ability to change everything – including yourself – starts here.”

— Bonnie Garmus

246. “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

247. “Because she says exactly what she thinks,” Walter said. “Which is very rare. But also because the food she makes is very, very good. And because everyone seems to want to learn chemistry. Oddly.”

— Bonnie Garmus

248. “He thought about the people who designed these dresses; how, like bomb manufacturers or pornography stars, they had to remain vague about the way they made their livings.”

— Bonnie Garmus

249. “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

250. “When I was a kid,” Calvin said quietly, “I used to tell myself every day was new. That anything could happen.” She took his hand again. “Did it help?” His mouth sagged as he remembered what the bishop at the boys home had revealed to him about his father. “I guess I’m just saying we shouldn’t let ourselves get stuck in the past.”

— Bonnie Garmus