Top 140 Karen M. McManus Quotes (2026 Update)
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51. “The loneliness of that settles over my shoulders like a heavy blanket.”

— Karen M. McManus

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

— Karen M. McManus

53. “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

54. “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

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

— 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. “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

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

— Karen M. McManus

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

— Karen M. McManus

60. “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

61. “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

62. “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

63. “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

64. “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

65. “I thought she was your mother.”

— Karen M. McManus

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

— Karen M. McManus

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

— Karen M. McManus

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

— Karen M. McManus

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

— Karen M. McManus

70. “Leave the past where it is.”

— Karen M. McManus

71. “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

72. “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

73. “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

74. “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

75. “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

76. “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

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

— Karen M. McManus

78. “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

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

— Karen M. McManus

80. “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

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

— Karen M. McManus

82. “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

83. “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

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

— Karen M. McManus

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

— Karen M. McManus

86. “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

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

— Karen M. McManus

88. “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

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. “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

91. “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

92. “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

93. “I’m the omniscient narrator.”

— Karen M. McManus

94. “Plenty of people get cheated on and don’t lose their minds. Take me, for example. I threw a vase at Charlie’s head and moved on. That’s a normal reaction.”

— Karen M. McManus

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

— Karen M. McManus

96. “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

97. “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

98. “Tripp’s is that sometimes he drinks a little too much when something sets him off.” Her face hardens. “Like a demented old groundskeeper turning positively feral.”

— Karen M. McManus

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

— Karen M. McManus

100. “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