Top 140 Karen M. McManus Quotes (2026 Update)
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51. “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

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

— Karen M. McManus

53. “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

54. “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

55. “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

56. “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

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

— Karen M. McManus

58. “Katrin would either have to be so desperate that she lost all sense of right and wrong, or be a cold-blooded killer.”

— Karen M. McManus

59. “I thought she was your mother.”

— Karen M. McManus

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

— Karen M. McManus

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

— Karen M. McManus

62. “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

63. “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

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

— Karen M. McManus

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

— Karen M. McManus

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

— Karen M. McManus

67. “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

68. “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

69. “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

70. “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

71. “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

72. “Sorry your mom drove her car into a jewelry store while she was high on opioids and had to go to rehab for four months.”

— Karen M. McManus

73. “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

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

— Karen M. McManus

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

— Karen M. McManus

76. “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

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

— Karen M. McManus

78. “Leave the past where it is.”

— Karen M. McManus

79. “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

80. “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

81. “I’m not sure which is worse – that it took Ramon less than five minutes to expose me as a true-crime novice who neglects basic research, or that he keeps calling Mr. Larkin a void. I want to defend Mr. Larkin, or maybe myself, but Carly speaks up before I can do either.”

— Karen M. McManus

82. “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

83. “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

84. “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

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

— Karen M. McManus

86. “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

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

— Karen M. McManus

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

— Karen M. McManus

89. “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

90. “Jake still won’t talk to me, and I miss him so much, it’s like I’ve been hollowed out by a nuclear blast and there’s nothing left but ashes fluttering inside brittle bones. I’ve sent him dozens of texts that aren’t only unanswered; they’re unread. He unfriended me on Facebook and unfollowed me on Instagram and Snapchat. He’s pretending I don’t exist and I’m starting to think he’s right. If I’m not Jake’s girlfriend, who am I?”

— Karen M. McManus

91. “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

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

— Karen M. McManus

93. “You don’t think about what’s outside. Or who. Especially if she’s better off forgetting you exist.”

— Karen M. McManus

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

— Karen M. McManus

95. “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

96. “I don’t let her finish. I’m beyond tired of people telling me what I want. “Do you guys do haircuts here? Or should I go somewhere else?”

— Karen M. McManus

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

— Karen M. McManus

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

— Karen M. McManus

99. “You’re not going to wither up and die from this, Addy,” Ashton lectures me as she shoves me toward the shower. “He doesn’t get to erase you from the world.”

— Karen M. McManus

100. “Shane can’t handle the pressure from all this renewed interest in Mr. Larkin, what the hell hope do Charlotte or I have?”

— Karen M. McManus