Top 140 Karen M. McManus Quotes (2024 Update)
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51. “I thought you’d look how you talk.” I’m not going to rise to the bait and ask her what she means, but she keeps going without prompting. “Like a constipated gnome.”

— Karen M. McManus

52. “Population 4,935.’ Never changed the entire eighteen years I lived there,” she’d say with a smirk. “Apparently if you’re going to bring someone in, you have to take someone out first.”

— Karen M. McManus

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

— Karen M. McManus

54. “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

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

— Karen M. McManus

56. “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

57. “I know that secrets can eat you alive, and the truth can break your heart, and sometimes it’s hard to know which is worse.”

— Karen M. McManus

58. “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

59. “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

60. “Leave the past where it is.”

— Karen M. McManus

61. “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

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

— Karen M. McManus

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

— Karen M. McManus

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

— Karen M. McManus

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

— Karen M. McManus

66. “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

67. “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

68. “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

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

— Karen M. McManus

70. “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

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

— Karen M. McManus

72. “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

73. “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

74. “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

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

— Karen M. McManus

76. “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

77. “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

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

— Karen M. McManus

79. “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

80. “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

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

— Karen M. McManus

82. “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

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

— Karen M. McManus

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

— Karen M. McManus

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

— Karen M. McManus

86. “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

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

— Karen M. McManus

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

— Karen M. McManus

89. “She’s a pain in my ass and I can’t remember why I wanted to kiss her so badly a few minutes ago.”

— Karen M. McManus

90. “What date was the car brought in, again?” “August thirty-first,” she says. “August thirty-first.” I repeat. My skin prickles, every nerve twitching. Ezra tilts his head. “Why do you look like you just swallowed a grenade?” “Because we came in from LA the night before that. August thirtieth, remember? The hailstorm. The night Mr. Bowman was killed in a hit-and-run.” Nobody says anything for a second, and I tap the paper Mia is holding. “Front of vehicle damage due to unknown impact?”

— Karen M. McManus

91. “Are you guys even real?”

— Karen M. McManus

92. “To interrupt me? And question my judgment, like I’m some kind of novice who needs guidance and not the person who single-handedly built this show from the ground up?” “Preach it,” Lindzi says under her breath.”

— Karen M. McManus

93. “I smiled at her, but wished I were sitting on the other side of the table. I hate seeing Keely and me side by side. She’s so beautiful, all tawny skin and long eyelashes and Angelina Jolie lips. She’s the lead character in a movie and I’m the generic best friend whose name you forget before the credits even start rolling.”

— Karen M. McManus

94. “I thought she was your mother.”

— Karen M. McManus

95. “A job promotion, I decide. That must be it. Which is excellent news, except for the part where she’s going to remind me that she got it through hard work and oh, by the way, why can’t I work harder at literally everything.”

— Karen M. McManus

96. “Amen to that,” I say, and Brynn kicks me under the table. Rose points the bottle at me. “Not you specifically. Jesus respects the drinking age.”

— Karen M. McManus

97. “I wish he’d listen, because if anyone knows how badly you can screw up your life when you decide you’re not good enough, it’s me.”

— Karen M. McManus

98. “Ellery’s eyes are steady on mine, her lips curved in a small, questioning smile. I draw her face closer and before I can overthink it, I kiss her.”

— Karen M. McManus

99. “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

100. “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