Top 140 Karen M. McManus Quotes (2024 Update)
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51. “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

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

— Karen M. McManus

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

— Karen M. McManus

54. “But you can’t change the past, you know? All you can do is try harder next time. So don’t give up on yourself just yet.”

— Karen M. McManus

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

— Karen M. McManus

56. “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

57. “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

58. “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

59. “I have to figure out a way to live with that, and it won’t be by not forgiving other people’s mistakes.”

— Karen M. McManus

60. “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

61. “Leave the past where it is.”

— Karen M. McManus

62. “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

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

— Karen M. McManus

64. “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

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

— Karen M. McManus

66. “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

67. “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

68. “Like we’re some kind of hip high school murder club without a care in the world.”

— Karen M. McManus

69. “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

70. “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

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

— Karen M. McManus

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

— Karen M. McManus

73. “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

74. “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

75. “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

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

— Karen M. McManus

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

— Karen M. McManus

78. “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

79. “Are you guys even real?”

— Karen M. McManus

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

— Karen M. McManus

81. “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

82. “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

83. “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

84. “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

85. “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

86. “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

87. “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

88. “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

89. “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

90. “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

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

— Karen M. McManus

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

— Karen M. McManus

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

— Karen M. McManus

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

— Karen M. McManus

95. “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

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

— Karen M. McManus

97. “Everybody’s got secrets.”

— Karen M. McManus

98. “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

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

— Karen M. McManus

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

— Karen M. McManus