Top 450 Bonnie Garmus Quotes (2026 Update)
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201. “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

202. “They lay silently, both wading in the misery of their pasts.”

— Bonnie Garmus

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

— Bonnie Garmus

204. “Because while musical prodigies are always celebrated, early readers aren’t.”

— Bonnie Garmus

205. “Pregnancy is a normal condition. It is not disgraceful. It is how every human being starts.” “How dare you,” he said, his voice rising. “A woman telling me what pregnancy is. Who do you think you are?” She seemed surprised by the question. “A woman,” she said.”

— Bonnie Garmus

206. “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

207. “Elizabeth continued to sit silently. Against her better judgment, she felt herself warming to the idea. She didn’t want to: she didn’t like the notion that systems had to be outsmarted. Why couldn’t they just be smart in the first place? And she certainly didn’t like favors. Favors smacked of cheating. And yet she had goals, and dammit, why should she just sit by? Sitting by never got anyone anywhere.”

— Bonnie Garmus

208. “Because unlike adults, her visitor never tired of even the smallest discovery; always saw the magic in the ordinary.”

— Bonnie Garmus

209. “Just like after her brother’s suicide and Meyers’s attack, she could not cry. An army of tears lay just behind her eyes, but they refused to decamp.”

— Bonnie Garmus

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

— Bonnie Garmus

211. “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

212. “I get it,” she said, skimming a physics textbook later that day at work. “Rowing is a simple matter of kinetic energy versus boat drag and center of mass.” She jotted down a few formulas. “And gravity,” she added, “and buoyancy, ratio, speed, balance, gearing, oar length, blade type.”

— Bonnie Garmus

213. “Imagine if all men took women seriously. Education would change.”

— Bonnie Garmus

214. “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

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

— Bonnie Garmus

216. “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

217. “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

218. “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

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

— Bonnie Garmus

220. “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

221. “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

222. “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

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

— Bonnie Garmus

224. “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

225. “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

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

— Bonnie Garmus

227. “You can’t fix it because the world doesn’t work that way. Life isn’t fair.”

— 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. “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

230. “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

231. “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

232. “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

233. “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

234. “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

235. “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

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

— Bonnie Garmus

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

— Bonnie Garmus

238. “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

239. “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

240. “I don’t have hopes,” Mad explained, studying the address. “I have faith.”

— Bonnie Garmus

241. “Harriet thought it was wrong not to believe in God. It lacked humility. In her opinion, believing in God was required, like brushing teeth or wearing underwear. Certainly, all decent people believed in God – even indecent people, like her husband, believed in God. God is why they.”

— Bonnie Garmus

242. “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

243. “Hello, Edna,” she said, “and thanks for your question. The answer is no; I don’t have a favorite grace. In fact, I don’t say grace at all.”

— Bonnie Garmus

244. “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I can’t change’?”

— Bonnie Garmus

245. “Zott, please! We’re women! You know very well Evans left you something!” And Elizabeth, eyes suddenly wide with recognition, was sick all over again.”

— Bonnie Garmus

246. “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

247. “Because what does one say to someone who’s lost everything?”

— Bonnie Garmus

248. “Everyone needed help. But maybe because she’d never been offered any, she refused to believe in it.”

— Bonnie Garmus

249. “He would tell about her, but not tell on her.”

— Bonnie Garmus

250. “But supper isn’t all we’ve made, ladies. We’ve also made history.”

— Bonnie Garmus