Top 450 Bonnie Garmus Quotes (2025 Update)
Page 9 of 10

401. “A mother and a scientist,” she said, brushing sawdust off her sleeve. “You’re a father, aren’t you? A father and a scientist.”

— Bonnie Garmus

402. “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

403. “It was on their honeymoon that he’d first masturbated to girlie magazines right next to her in bed.”

— Bonnie Garmus

404. “She had neither the education nor the experience of the others. She not only lacked their credentials but their papers, peer support, financial backing, and awards. And yet, she knew – she knew – she was onto something. Some people were born to things; she was one of those people.”

— Bonnie Garmus

405. “And now, here was this little girl claiming to be his daughter. God really did move in mysterious ways.”

— Bonnie Garmus

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

— Bonnie Garmus

407. “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

408. “Then she looked right through the camera lens, and almost as if she divined it, directly into the astonished faces of Mrs. George Fillis’s five children sprawled in front of the TV in Kernville, their eyes open wide, their mouths agape, as if they had just seen their mother for the very first time. “Boys, set the table,” Elizabeth commanded. “Your mother needs a moment to herself.”

— Bonnie Garmus

409. “But isn’t there more solace in science?” Calvin responded. “In things we can prove and therefore work to improve? I just don’t understand how anyone thinks anything written ages ago by drunk people is even remotely believable.”

— Bonnie Garmus

410. “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

411. “What is wrong with women?” Elizabeth demanded. “Why do they buy into these cultural stereotypes? Worse, why do they perpetuate them? Are they not aware of the dominant female role in the hidden tribes of the Amazon? Is.”

— Bonnie Garmus

412. “Before I go, Elizabeth, can I offer just one bit of advice?” Harriet began. “Actually no, I won’t. I hate getting advice, especially unsolicited advice.” She turned a ruddy color. “Do you hate advice givers? I do. They have a way of making one feel inadequate. And the advice is usually lousy.”

— Bonnie Garmus

413. “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

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

— Bonnie Garmus

415. “Although he didn’t admit to it, Wakely found himself agreeing. No one had to pray to Snow White or fear the wrath of Rumpelstiltskin to understand the message. 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. He decided to change the topic.”

— Bonnie Garmus

416. “Excuse me, Father,” Calvin said, leafing through his copy, “but there’s a problem with mine. Some of the pages are missing.” “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. “That’s enough, Calvin.” “But – ” The ruler cracked down hard against his knuckles.”

— Bonnie Garmus

417. “Almost no one bought this story. Dr. Meyers had a reputation.”

— Bonnie Garmus

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

— Bonnie Garmus

419. “A man can make lunch, Mr. Pine. It is not biologically impossible.”

— Bonnie Garmus

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

— Bonnie Garmus

421. “And while Elizabeth wasn’t entirely keen on the idea – she was a research chemist – she took the job for the usual reasons: it paid more and she had a child to support.”

— Bonnie Garmus

422. “Well,” she said, “she keeps repeating how by Saturday night, she’ll finally be Mrs. Peter Dickman. As if changing her name is the finish line for a race she’s been in since she was six.”

— Bonnie Garmus

423. “This time, though, we’ll make sure everyone knows you earned your place. You’re a bright girl, Lizzie. It’s possible.”

— Bonnie Garmus

424. “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

425. “There was an aquamarine water-filled quarry below; she’d hit it like a missile. Her toes.”

— Bonnie Garmus

426. “Believe me. But that’s not really your problem. It’s not that you want out.” She turned to look at him, confused. “It’s that you want back in.”

— Bonnie Garmus

427. “Constant adaptations brought about by a series of never-ending mistakes?”

— Bonnie Garmus

428. “What a mess devotion was.”

— Bonnie Garmus

429. “There was so much to do she couldn’t even make a to-do list because making a list was just one more thing to do. Plus, she still had all of her other.”

— Bonnie Garmus

430. “Mother of god,” Mrs. Sloane said as Elizabeth placed a cup of coffee in front of her. “Have you never heard of Folger’s?”

— Bonnie Garmus

431. “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

432. “She supposed it took a certain type of skill to be able to say exactly the wrong thing at exactly the wrong time.”

— Bonnie Garmus

433. “A fairy godmother is just another word for philanthropist.”

— Bonnie Garmus

434. “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

435. “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

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. “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

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

— Bonnie Garmus

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

— Bonnie Garmus

440. “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

441. “It wasn’t that he couldn’t function without her, but rather that he didn’t see the point of functioning without her.”

— Bonnie Garmus

442. “Five minutes later, Roth was riding next to Elizabeth Zott in the front seat of her old blue Plymouth, the dog and the photographer relegated to the back. “He doesn’t bite, does he?” the photographer asked as he crammed himself against the window. “All dogs have the ability to bite,” she said over her shoulder. “Just as all humans have the ability to cause harm. The trick is to act in a reasonable way so that harm becomes unnecessary.”

— Bonnie Garmus

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

— Bonnie Garmus

444. “Mrs. Mudford clicked her teeth. “You misunderstand me, Mrs. Zott. Children interrupt; that I can deal with. What I can’t deal with is a child who wants to change the discussion to civil rights. This is kindergarten, not The Huntley-Brinkley Report.”

— Bonnie Garmus

445. “In contrast, Supper at Six focuses on our commonalities – our chemistries. So even though our viewers may find themselves locked into a learned societal behavior – say, the old ‘men are like this, women are like that’ type of thing – the show encourages them to think beyond that cultural simplicity. To think sensibly. Like a scientist.”

— Bonnie Garmus

446. “Obviously, he knew how to find KCTV. Anyone who’d read The Incredible Journey would understand how un-incredible it was that dogs could find just about anything. He used to marvel at the needle in the haystack story Elizabeth had once read to him – marvel because what was so hard about finding a needle in a haystack? The scent of high carbon steel wire was unmistakable.”

— Bonnie Garmus

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

448. “He was dead thirty-seven minutes later.”

— Bonnie Garmus

449. “That’s when it came to her. She would charge. Cash only.”

— Bonnie Garmus

450. “The biggest benefit in being the child of a scientist? Low safety bar.”

— Bonnie Garmus