Top 450 Bonnie Garmus Quotes (2026 Update)
Page 9 of 10

401. “The only real issue with these people, besides the occasional hygiene challenge, was that they always seemed to embrace failure as a positive outcome. “I have not failed,” they’d endlessly quote Edison, “I’ve just found ten thousand ways that won’t work.” Which may be an acceptable thing to say in science but is absolutely the wrong thing to say to a roomful of investors looking for an immediate, high-ticket, chronic treatment for cancer.”

— Bonnie Garmus

402. “Although she was only almost four, Mad was already bigger than most five-year-olds and could read better than many sixth graders. But despite these physical and intellectual strides, just like her antisocial mother and grudge-holding father, she had few friends.”

— Bonnie Garmus

403. “By the way, how’s the lab tech job going? Suicidal yet?”

— Bonnie Garmus

404. “And then they looked at one another as if to confirm what they had already long suspected: Americans were idiots.”

— Bonnie Garmus

405. “Do you keep secrets?” “Yes,” he admitted. “How about you?” “Me too,” she said. “I’m pretty sure everyone does,” he said. “Especially the people who say they don’t. There’s no way you go through life without being embarrassed or ashamed about something.”

— Bonnie Garmus

406. “I believe in a few things,” he corrected. “Mostly the things about not giving up hope, not giving in to darkness.”

— Bonnie Garmus

407. “Humans. Some of them didn’t seem to grasp their actual status within the animal kingdom.”

— Bonnie Garmus

408. “Roth stared down at the table. He’d had a normal upbringing – two parents, no suicides, no murders, not even a single wayward touch from a priest in his parish. And yet he still found plenty of to complain about. What was wring with him? Just as people had a bad habit of dismissing others’ problems and tragedies, so too did they have a bad habit of not appreciating what they have. Or had.”

— Bonnie Garmus

409. “Neither of them had wanted children, and Elizabeth still fervently believed that no woman should be forced to have a baby. 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.”

— Bonnie Garmus

410. “It was the same for Elizabeth. She sensed that Six-Thirty had also suffered beyond the usual dog-left-by-the-roadside neglect, and she, too, felt the need to protect him.”

— Bonnie Garmus

411. “I’ve already got a bunch of temp typing jobs lined up. But before I leave, I have a little present for you. Something to make up for all the grief I caused after Mr. Evans died. Why don’t you meet me on Friday at the south elevator. Four o’clock. I promise you won’t be disappointed.”

— Bonnie Garmus

412. “He’d stared at the test results, expecting to feel cheated or devastated or any of the other ways he’d guessed he was supposed to feel, but instead he’d felt completely nonplussed. 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

413. “Calvin smiled to himself. It was a side of Elizabeth he’d never seen before: a mothering instinct.”

— Bonnie Garmus

414. “A favorite from Lessons in Chemistry on this Tuesday – Whenever you feel afraid, just remember. Courage is the root of change – and change is what we’re chemically designed to do.”

— Bonnie Garmus

415. “People like my father preach love but are filled with hate. Anyone who threatens their narrow beliefs cannot be tolerated.”

— Bonnie Garmus

416. “Anyway, people think they know more about themselves based on these silly branches full of names of people they’ve never met. For instance, I know someone who’s very proud to be a direct descendant of Galileo, and another who can trace her roots back to the Mayflower. They both talk about their lineage as if they have a pedigree, but they don’t. Your relatives can’t make you important or smart. They can’t make you you.”

— Bonnie Garmus

417. “And yet I still use the skin, not only because it’s fiber rich, but because it serves as a daily reminder that in potatoes as in life, danger is everywhere. The best strategy is not to fear the danger, but respect it.”

— Bonnie Garmus

418. “Most of the women she’d met in college claimed they were only there to get their MRS. It was disconcerting, as if they’d all drunk something that had rendered them temporarily insane.”

— Bonnie Garmus

419. “I can’t believe we’re fired,” he continued. “I mean, we have a hit show on our hands and we’re fired?” Elizabeth looked at him with concern. “No, Walter,” she said slowly. “We’re not fired. We’re in charge.”

— Bonnie Garmus

420. “The stories were short, memorable, and covered all the bases of love, pride, folly, and forgiveness. Their rules were bite-sized: Don’t be a jerk. Don’t hurt other people or animals. Share what you have with others less fortunate. In other words, be nice.”

— Bonnie Garmus

421. “I’ve always wrapped my shows by telling your children to set the table so that you might have a moment for yourself. ‘A moment for yourself’ – that was the advice Harriet Sloane gave me the first day I met her, and that is the advice that has resulted in my decision to leave Supper at Six. 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

422. “That’s just Calvin. He doesn’t like to run in place in ballet slippers.”

— Bonnie Garmus

423. “The I-hate-people gene?” Harriet said. “There is one?”

— Bonnie Garmus

424. “You have a lot of nerve,” Donatti said. “You know very well women do not continue to work when pregnant.”

— Bonnie Garmus

425. “He’d once heard someone say it was important to be reminded of one’s failures, but he didn’t know why. Failures, by their very nature, had a way of being unforgettable.”

— Bonnie Garmus

426. “Later, in her dressing room, Rosa, the hairdresser and makeup woman, stopped by to say goodbye. “For the record, I liked the hair pencil.”

— Bonnie Garmus

427. “Look, I realize this may be hard for you to fathom given your own terrible circumstances, but while we may be born into families, it doesn’t necessarily mean we belong to them.”

— Bonnie Garmus

428. “You’ve had so many, well, so many men dropping by at the oddest hours.” She cleared her throat. “It’s work,” Elizabeth said as she coaxed Madeline to take the bottle. “Whatever you want to call it,” Mrs. Sloane said.”

— Bonnie Garmus

429. “Calvin had believed persistence was innate; Elizabeth argued it was learned. Six-Thirty, on the other hand, thought persistence was intelligence.”

— Bonnie Garmus

430. “She ended every show with her signature line: “Children, set the table. Your mother needs a moment to herself.”

— Bonnie Garmus

431. “What’s all this?” he finally said, pointing to her bandaged fingers. “Oh. I’m a rower. Trying to be.” “Are you any good?” “No.” “Then why are you doing it?” “I’m not sure.” He shook his head. “Boy, do I get that.”

— Bonnie Garmus

432. “Every day she found parenthood like taking a test for which she had not studied.”

— Bonnie Garmus

433. “Because I can’t risk having my scientific contributions submerged beneath your name,” she clarified.”

— Bonnie Garmus

434. “You know what?” Elizabeth said, meeting Six-Thirty on the stairs just outside the building. “We’ll just keep this between ourselves. She’s legally Mad, but we’ll call her Madeline and no one will be the wiser.” Legally Mad, Six-Thirty thought. What could possibly go wrong?”

— Bonnie Garmus

435. “Life wasn’t a hypothesis one could test and retest without consequence-something always crashed eventually.”

— Bonnie Garmus

436. “Because in a man’s mind, why else would a woman mention bombykol on a Friday evening in an empty parking lot when the soft breeze was coming out of the west carrying the scent of her extremely expensive shampoo directly into his nasal cavity unless it was all part of a plot to get more beakers?”

— Bonnie Garmus

437. “But why is saying what you think so rare?” “Because there are consequences,” Harriet said.”

— Bonnie Garmus

438. “This was called ignoring. Or wait, no. Ignorance.”

— Bonnie Garmus

439. “Which, he thought, as he grabbed his tennis shoes, had to be the very definition of love. To actually want to change for someone else.”

— Bonnie Garmus

440. “But you realize,” she said carefully, as if not to embarrass him further, “that faith isn’t based on religion. Right?”

— Bonnie Garmus

441. “Oh right,” Frask mocked. “Same old song. I’d heard the investor came back, and shazam! Here you are. I’ll say one thing for you: you’re predictable. At least you’re chasing a richer man this time. Although, between us, isn’t he a bit old for you?”

— Bonnie Garmus

442. “But the truth is, we are very much responsible for the badness in the world. And we have the power to fix it.”

— Bonnie Garmus

443. “She was stiff, unforgiving. Truth be told, he felt a little sorry for her. No one turned this mean without having been a victim of the same.”

— Bonnie Garmus

444. “Nor did he faint when she accidentally backed into him at the sink and he caught a whiff of her hair. He didn’t even know hair could smell like that – as if it had been washed in a basin of flowers.”

— Bonnie Garmus

445. “And that’s because early readers are only good at something others will eventually be good at, too. So being first isn’t special – it’s just annoying.”

— Bonnie Garmus

446. “Elizabeth opened every show by insisting that cooking wasn’t easy and that the next thirty minutes might very well be torturous.”

— Bonnie Garmus

447. “Both require patience, endurance, strength, and commitment. And neither allow us to see where we’re going – only where we’ve been.”

— Bonnie Garmus

448. “When I was a kid,” Calvin said quietly, “I used to tell myself every day was new. That anything could happen.”

— Bonnie Garmus

449. “Someone would write her a recommendation. Go. That’s how she’d ended up at Hastings Research Institute.”

— Bonnie Garmus

450. “No. You need to understand this, Calvin. People like my father preach love but are filled with hate. Anyone.”

— Bonnie Garmus