Top 280 Maureen Johnson Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “You can never visit the same place twice. Each time, it’s a different story. By the very act of coming back, you wipe out what came before.”

— Maureen Johnson

2. “Every contact leaves a trace.”

— Maureen Johnson

3. “Tired, but not the kind of tired that sleep fixes.”

— Maureen Johnson

4. “A book gives you everything. It gives you a window into other souls, other worlds. The world is a door. Books are the key.”

— Maureen Johnson

5. “The real magic rocks are the friends we make along the way.”

— Maureen Johnson

6. “It could have been like a fairy tale. But fairy tales aren’t real. Things don’t work like that. There’s a price for everything.”

— Maureen Johnson

7. “You have to try. Trying is the first step to whatever comes next.”

— Maureen Johnson

8. “WORTH IT and perfect are different things. No one’s perfect, yet in romance, everyone becomes WORTH IT. And that’s the trick.”

— Maureen Johnson

Featured in: Romance Quotes

9. “Annoy a Southerner and we will drain away the moments of your life with our slow, detailed replies until you are nothing but a husk of your former self and that much closer to death.”

— Maureen Johnson

10. “That was something they taught you in anxiety therapy- the thoughts may come, but you don’t have to chase them all. It was sort of the opposite of good detective work, in which you had to follow every lead.”

— Maureen Johnson

11. “You have to take things as they are, not how you hear they’re supposed to be.”

— Maureen Johnson

12. “When you have enough power and money, you can dictate the meanings of words.”

— Maureen Johnson

13. “Proximity doesn’t breed familiarity.”

— Maureen Johnson

14. “The funny thing about stop signs is that they’re also start signs.”

— Maureen Johnson

15. “Of course I worry too much,” Nate said. “But I’m usually right. The people who worry are always right. That’s how that works.”

— Maureen Johnson

16. “Salt. Wound. Together at last.”

— Maureen Johnson

17. “Don’t get stabbed. It makes everything awkward.”

— Maureen Johnson

18. “Games are not fun when you don’t know you’re playing.”

— Maureen Johnson

19. “Where her books were, she was. Get the books right and the rest will follow. Now she could address the rest of the room.”

— Maureen Johnson

20. “I know no one is perfect, that behind every facade of perfection is a writhing mess of subterfuge and secret sorrows... but even taking that into account, Noah was pretty much perfect.”

— Maureen Johnson

21. “The wonderful thing about reality is that it is highly flexible. One minute, all is doom; the next, everything is abloom with possibility.”

— Maureen Johnson

22. “Claim whatever you want. Say you only want a happy family or a successful career or a big house. I say: no, that’s not what you want. You’ll settle for those things, but you really want a monkey that does your evil bidding. Pullman is a genius just for this.”

— Maureen Johnson

23. “Anxiety does not ask your permission. Anxiety does not come when expected. It’s very rude. It barges in at the strangest moments, stopping all activity, focusing everything on itself It sucks the air our of your lungs and scrambles the world.”

— Maureen Johnson

24. “It’s always easier to say good-bye when you know it’s just a prelude to hello.”

— Maureen Johnson

25. “Sometimes, life leaves you without directions, without guideposts or signs. When this happens, you just have to pick a direction and run like hell.”

— Maureen Johnson

26. “I have no phobias. Phobias are irrational. My fears are rational and CAREFULLY CULTIVATED, like roses.”

— Maureen Johnson

27. “Albert Ellingham said knowledge was his religion and libraries were his church, so he built a church.”

— Maureen Johnson

28. “What you lack in any investigation is time. With every passing hour, evidence slips away. Crime scenes are compromised by people and the elements. Things are moved, altered, smeared, shifted. Organisms rot. Wind blows dust and contaminants. Memories change and fade. As you move away from the event, you move away from the solution.”

— Maureen Johnson

29. “His voice was deep and smooth and rich, like what gravy might sound like if gravy could talk.”

— Maureen Johnson

30. “Keep calm and carry on. Also, stay in and hide because the Ripper is coming.”

— Maureen Johnson

31. “Sometimes Stevie felt bad for her parents. Their idea of what constituted interesting was so limited. They were never going to have as much fun as she did.”

— Maureen Johnson

32. “All the money, all the power – none of it compares to a good book. A book gives you everything. It gives you a window into other souls, other worlds.”

— Maureen Johnson

33. “No moose,” Stevie said. “The moose is a lie.”

— Maureen Johnson

34. “The critical scene of the mystery is when the detective enters. The action shifts to Sherlock’s sitting room. The little Belgian man with the waxed moustache appears in the lobby of the grand hotel. The gentle old woman with a bag of knitting comes to visit her niece when the poison pen letters start going around the village. The private detective comes back to the office after a night of drinking and finds the woman with the cigarette and the veiled hat this is when things will change.”

— Maureen Johnson

35. “There is nothing so serious as a game.”

— Maureen Johnson

36. “I realize Jubilee is a bit of a stripper name. You probably think I have heard the call of the pole.”

— Maureen Johnson

37. “I’d love to be a tabletop in Paris, where food is art and life combined in one, where people gather and talk for hours. I want lovers to meet over me. I’d want to be covered in drops of candle wax and breadcrumbs and rings from the bottom of wineglasses. I would never be lonely, and I would always serve a good purpose.”

— Maureen Johnson

38. “My moose,” she said in a low voice. “I finally got it. The universe paid me in moose.”

— Maureen Johnson

39. “Last things were so strange. Most people had no control over of what their last acts would be.”

— Maureen Johnson

40. “Every time you try to flirt with her, a puppy dies.”

— Maureen Johnson

41. “This kind of thing always amazed Ginny – people who just walked away from institutions. People who left school when they didn’t see the point. Aunt Peg had done that. Ginny knew she never would. That either made her someone who worked hard and finished things, or someone who didn’t have the guts to break away from the pack. Maybe both.”

— Maureen Johnson

42. “She wasn’t only gay, she was a gay elf.”

— Maureen Johnson

43. “I guess life is full of maybes.”

— Maureen Johnson

44. “I like you because you were mad. And you’re pretty. And pretty sane for a mad person.”

— Maureen Johnson

45. “And if we get caught, I will claim I made you go. At gunpoint. I am American. People will assume I’m armed.”

— Maureen Johnson

46. “He looked a bit more confused by Stevie and David, but nodded politely. “I’m a watch ad,” David said. “She’s a hipster grandpa. Together, we solve crime.”

— Maureen Johnson

47. “I am a mass of contradictions.”

— Maureen Johnson

48. “This is how she had learned to release some of her anxiety – thoughts may come, but she didn’t have to follow them everywhere they wanted her to go.”

— Maureen Johnson

49. “Anything is better than doing what I’m supposed to be doing.”

— Maureen Johnson

50. “I decided to deflect her attitude by giving a long, Southern answer. I come from people who know how to draw things out. Annoy a Southerner, and we will drain away the moments of your life with our slow, detailed replies until you are nothing but a husk of your former self and that much closer to death.”

— Maureen Johnson