Top 140 Karen M. McManus Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “All of Fright Farm’s success is based on how much people love to be scared in a controlled environment. There’s something deeply satisfying about confronting a monster and escaping unscathed. Real monsters aren’t anything like that. They don’t let go.”

— Karen M. McManus

52. “The loneliness of that settles over my shoulders like a heavy blanket.”

— Karen M. McManus

53. “I’d like to introduce Officer Hank Budapest with the Bayview Police Department. He has some questions about what you witnessed on Monday.”

— Karen M. McManus

54. “But can‘t change the past, you know? All you can do is try harder next time.”

— Karen M. McManus

55. “Who do you want to be? The guy who goes along or the guy who stands up? This is the time to decide.”

— Karen M. McManus

56. “Nobody should be that good at so many different things. It doesn’t build character.”

— Karen M. McManus

57. “Oh, you sweet summer child.” Gideon shakes his head. “There’s no introducing when it comes to Ramon. I can guarantee you, if William Larkin is on the roundtable agenda, Ramon already knows more about his case than you ever will.”

— Karen M. McManus

58. “You find out who your real friends are when stuff like this happens.”

— Karen M. McManus

59. “Explore the magic of longhand writing. It’s a lost art.”

— Karen M. McManus

60. “It’s normal for people to grow apart when they reach high school, I guess, and it’s not like our friend breakup was some big, dramatic thing.”

— Karen M. McManus

61. “I love my father, but he can be a stereotypical scientist sometimes; blunt to the point of being cruel. He doesn’t realize how demoralizing it is to watch him dismiss someone who doesn’t have their entire life mapped out by the age of twenty-four.”

— Karen M. McManus

62. “That I preferred extreme failure to admitting I needed help. Which is a problem, isn’t it?”

— Karen M. McManus

63. “But the place in Madrid is free,” he said. Like Spain and Massachusetts are interchangeable to someone who doesn’t even have a passport.”

— Karen M. McManus

64. “I just want to stay wrapped around him for as long as possible, fighting sleep and forgetting about the rest of the world.”

— Karen M. McManus

65. “Leave the past where it is.”

— Karen M. McManus

66. “At first, all that registers is that this girl is drop-dead gorgeous. Dark hair, dark eyes, and full lips curved in a smirk that should probably be annoying but isn’t. She’s wearing a bright-red sundress and sandals, with sunglasses holding back her hair and a large, man-sized watch on one wrist, and – oh.”

— Karen M. McManus

67. “We’re like the Kardashians, except without any money.”

— Karen M. McManus

68. “Like only Corcoran twin gets to move on.”

— Karen M. McManus

69. “It feels erratic... But Alison knew what the problem was with her mother’s heart: it was broken.”

— Karen M. McManus

70. “Did you think I was joking about killing Simon? Read it and weep, kids. Everyone in detention with Simon last week had an extraspecial reason for wanting him gone. Exhibit A: the posts above, which he was about to publish on About That. Now here’s your assignment: connect the dots. Is everybody in it together, or is somebody pulling strings? Who’s the puppet master and who’s the puppet? I’ll give you a hint to get you started: everyone’s lying. GO!”

— Karen M. McManus

71. “How do you make that choice?” I ask almost to myself. “Between what you need and what you want?” I feel like my sister’s going through her own version of that. Kris’s eyes are on Cooper, too. “You hope they become the same thing, I guess.”

— Karen M. McManus

72. “We all make mistakes, right? And almost never see the fallout coming.”

— Karen M. McManus

73. “My sisters treated me like a living doll for years, carrying me around so much that I didn’t bother learning to walk until I was almost two.”

— Karen M. McManus

74. “Because God, it’s beautiful when that boy smiles.”

— Karen M. McManus

75. “I can read her mood even though the Botox froze her expressions long ago.”

— Karen M. McManus

76. “Sometimes, you don’t know what you want until you see it.”

— Karen M. McManus

77. “Later.” Kris hesitates a fraction of a second, then leans forward and pulls me roughly toward him, pressing his lips against mine. I close my eyes and the world around me fades, like it always does, when I slide my hands into his hair and kiss him back.”

— Karen M. McManus

78. “I think the two of them are the real deal. She‘s still the one he wants. She‘ll probably always be the one he wants.”

— Karen M. McManus

79. “He has Draco Malfoy white-blond hair swept to one side, and he’s wearing a crisp white shirt and a tie patterned with bright-blue fish.”

— Karen M. McManus

80. “They never yelled, just walked around with so much simmering resentment that it spread through the entire house like poisonous gas.”

— Karen M. McManus

81. “My throat thickens as I hear Mr. Larkin’s voice in my head, as clear today as it was four years ago. You have a gift, he said, and I don’t think he realized how much those words meant to me. I never told him, which is something I’ll always regret. “He was constantly trying to get students to live up to their potential,” I say. “Or see it, if they didn’t think they had any.”

— Karen M. McManus

82. “I have four of them, all older than me, all with K names: Kiersten, Katie, Kelsey, and Kara. We’re like the Kardashians, except without any money.”

— Karen M. McManus

83. “How do you make that choice?” I ask, almost to myself. “Between what you need and what you want?”

— Karen M. McManus

84. “This one has a bruise.” It looks fine to me, but Charlotte is like that fairy tale about the princess and the pea – always pointing out flaws that nobody else notices.”

— Karen M. McManus

85. “At this moment, I’ve never wanted to do anything as much as I want to grab his face and kiss every inch of it.”

— Karen M. McManus

86. “Oh, I have big plans. Netflix, ice cream, cutting Gabe out of all my pictures and burning his head. It’s gonna be a whole thing.”

— Karen M. McManus

87. “I’d rather live in Regina’s spare room for the rest of my life than hand thousands of dollars to the woman who abandoned me eight years ago and never looked back.”

— Karen M. McManus

88. “Colin snarls. “Bunch of psychopath elite freaks, all three of you. Think you can kill a teacher and get away with.”

— Karen M. McManus

89. “Her lips thin, and all I get in return is a curt nod. Looks like our brief bout of camaraderie is over. Note to self: Charlotte doesn’t like being disobeyed.”

— Karen M. McManus

90. “The justice system works very differently when you’re white, male, rich, and good-looking.”

— Karen M. McManus

91. “I hate department stores. They’re too bright, too loud, and too crammed full of junk that nobody needs. Whenever I’m forced to spend time in one I start thinking about how consumer culture is just one long, expensive, planet-killing distraction from the fact that we’re all going to die eventually.”

— Karen M. McManus

92. “Everything about Charlotte Holbrook is designed to make mere mortals feel plain, awkward, and underdressed.”

— Karen M. McManus

93. “Your brother saved you.”

— Karen M. McManus

94. “Everybody’s got secrets.”

— Karen M. McManus

95. “Which I realize is pretty uninspiring, but so is high school dating.”

— Karen M. McManus

96. “Well, they should make up their minds,” Charlotte says tightly. “Do they hate Mr. Larkin, or do they hate us? If we’re murderers, then you can’t have it both ways, right?”

— Karen M. McManus

97. “I used to think about that, sometimes, when I wondered what parts of her might still be alive.”

— Karen M. McManus

98. “My wunderkind brother, who skipped a grade and is currently outshining me in every aspect of our senior year, would have been the logical choice.”

— Karen M. McManus

99. “If I ever actively chose somebody instead of just letting myself get pulled into whatever orbit will have me.”

— Karen M. McManus

100. “Cheating isn’t a mistake. It’s a choice.”

— Karen M. McManus