Top 280 Maureen Johnson Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “Stuart, who had just witnessed me go through an entire rainbow of emotions and experiences. There was parents-have-just-been-jailed me, stuck-in-a-strange-town me, insane-and-can’t-shut-up me, kind-of-snarky-to-the-strange-guy-trying-to-be-helpful me, breakup me, and the extremely popular jump-on-top-of-you-unexpectedly me.”

— Maureen Johnson

52. “Fear can’t hurt you,” she said. “When it washes over you, give it no power. It’s a snake with no venom. Remember that. That knowledge can save you.”

— Maureen Johnson

53. “It’s everyone’s dream... Come to Ellingham Academy, move a ramp out of a hole in the dark. – Nate.”

— Maureen Johnson

54. “It took a lot of women like that, a lot of women who said “I’m not going to do what you expect me to do, because you have no idea what I’m capable of. I’m going to get dirty and use tools and live the way I want” to move the world forward.”

— Maureen Johnson

55. “Even though she had been warned, she tripped over the bike. She probably tripped because she’d been warned and was telling herself not to trip over the bike. She did that sometimes. It was often easier not to know what obstacles were in the way.”

— Maureen Johnson

56. “Don’t follow someone into the dark, Stevie. I’ve seen it happen too many times.”

— Maureen Johnson

57. “I felt so alone on that train... a weird, unnatural kind of alone that bore into me. It was feeling just beyond fear and somewhere to the left of sadness.”

— Maureen Johnson

58. “Anxiety is very accommodating. Minutes ago, Stevie’s anxiety was all about failure. It neatly converted itself into worry about places called Bounce Houses and not having hot water or air-conditioning. It was perfectly ready to bring the snakes to the party. It’s a big tent. All problems are welcome.”

— Maureen Johnson

59. “Writing is a lot of sitting down... It’s a lot of trying things out and screwing up... It’s either amazing or it’s the worst thing in the world. Sometimes it goes well, and it’s all you think about, and then, it’s gone. It’s like you’re taking a ride down a river really fast, and then all of a sudden, there’s no water. You’re just sitting in a raft, trying to push it along in the mud. And then you’ve become me.”

— Maureen Johnson

60. “How does this keep happening to you?” David said. “Because I look,” Stevie replied. “A lot of things happen when you go out and do them on purpose.”

— Maureen Johnson

61. “Stevie always tried to be truthful, but she didn’t want to make her first acquaintance in her new house and say, “Your show was mediocre and overrated but I see why you are valued: for your looks and deep voice.” People tended not to warm to that kind of thing.”

— Maureen Johnson

62. “Her parents had no idea that you could meet people outside of school and it wasn’t freaky and the internet was the way of finding your people.”

— Maureen Johnson

63. “Shock is a funny thing. Things get both sharp and fuzzy. Time stretches and distorts. Things come rushing into focus and seem larger than they are. Other things vanish to a single point.”

— Maureen Johnson

64. “That particular April day was strange and foggy, blurring spaces between the trees and blanketing all of Ellingham in a milky mist. Dottie decided that the weather lent itself to a mystery. Sherlock Holmes would be perfect.”

— Maureen Johnson

65. “Panic attacks are mean little freaks.”

— Maureen Johnson

66. “Stuart must have sensed my despair from the way I began lightly banging my forehead on the table.”

— Maureen Johnson

67. “Sometimes I even felt like he dated me as part of his plan, like they were going to have a checklist on the application, and one of the things to tick off was going to be, “Do you have a reasonably intelligent girlfriend who shares your aspirations, and who is fully prepared to accept your limited availability?”

— Maureen Johnson

68. “I envisioned huge piles of the Elf Hotel flying off the belt, taking down everybody in sight. I had seen pictures of that Elf Hotel – it had sharp candy-cane spires that could easily impale someone. If anyone was ever going to be killed by an Elf Hotel, it would be my parents.”

— Maureen Johnson

69. “Running away is pretty pathetic, but it’s even worse getting caught.”

— Maureen Johnson

70. “There were for sure snakes at the camp. It was entirely made of snakes. Why hadn’t she thought of the snakes?”

— Maureen Johnson

71. “Irony is the word I forget the meaning of immediately after I look it up, but I kind of feel like I live in a constant state of it.”

— Maureen Johnson

72. “Vitamin D,” Stevie said. “You need it.” “You don’t know that,” he said. “I want to eat my meat in my room with the lights off.” “As a writer, are those really the words you want to use?” Stevie asked.”

— Maureen Johnson

73. “When the darkness came for Dottie, it was quick and it was total.”

— Maureen Johnson

74. “It’s two thousand pages and nothing happens. It’s all terrible. I wrote the first book and then I forgot how to write. It used to be that I would sit and write and I would go into some other world – I could see it all. I was totally in another place. But the second it became something I had to do, something in me broke. It’s like I used to know the way to some magical land and I lost the map.”

— Maureen Johnson

75. “Once skin touched tile and part of her soul died, she knew what slippers were for.”

— Maureen Johnson

76. “Where her books were, she was. Get the books right and the rest will follow.”

— Maureen Johnson

77. “Which is both gross and breathtakingly romantic. He could always have just gone upstairs and brushed his teeth, but he stayed and lurked by the fish for me.”

— Maureen Johnson

78. “I live alone,” Knud said, “and I work alone, but I am never truly alone. I do my ancestor’s work. I live the entire history of my country and people.”

— Maureen Johnson

79. “How could she be anxious when everything was so cheerful? Very easily, as it happens. Brain chemistry doesn’t care about how pretty things are.”

— Maureen Johnson

80. “The expression is: a boy’s best friend is his mother. It’s not: a boy’s best pimp is his mother. It is that way for a reason.”

— Maureen Johnson

81. “Few words are more chilling when put together than make friends. The command to pair bond sent ice water through Stevie’s veins. She wanted falling rocks. But she knew what would happen if she didn’t do the talking – her parents would. And if her parents started, anything could happen.”

— Maureen Johnson

82. “But knowing something is beautiful and caring about it are two very different things.”

— Maureen Johnson

83. “Stevie’s other big interest outside crime was disaster, so she had seen Titanic many times. It was clear to her that there was plenty of room on that door for two people. Jack was murdered.”

— Maureen Johnson

84. “What do you do when the devil turns up in your living room and offers you everything you want?”

— Maureen Johnson

85. “Leo approved of poets, generally, but it was very important not to let them get started on the subject of their work if you wanted to continue enjoying poetry.”

— Maureen Johnson

86. “This pool is a triumph of imagination. That’s how you win at life, Gin. You have to imagine your way through. Never say something can’t be done. There’s always a solution, even if it’s weird.”

— Maureen Johnson

87. “In my mind, I said the best things to Elton. I wrote countless excellent notes that I never sent. I came up with clever and highly detailed imaginary situations in which we were thrown together and it somehow made him realize that life without me was a hollow shell. But he didn’t look like a hollow shell. He looked like he was back on the soccer team, all calf muscles and lean body.”

— Maureen Johnson

88. “Maybe he understood how terrifying it is to do the thing you meant to do.”

— Maureen Johnson

89. “Something about this boat screamed, “I am a very popular model in the world’s oil-bearing regions. I cost more than your soul!”

— Maureen Johnson

90. “Stevie woke the next morning, which was a good start. When things are bad, give yourself a point for everything.”

— Maureen Johnson

91. “In Vermont, there is maple syrup in it – it doesn’t matter what it is. Cake. Ice cream. Coffee. Soup. Mustard. Concrete.”

— Maureen Johnson

92. “Hey! Jack the Wanker! Over here! I want your autograph!”

— Maureen Johnson

93. “The thing about looking just a little bit means it’s really easy to look a little bit more.”

— Maureen Johnson

94. “It was clearly one of those mornings when I was particularly American.”

— Maureen Johnson

95. “Writing is one of the few careers for which you essentially train yourself, the other two major ones being juggling and pickpocketing.”

— Maureen Johnson

96. “Oh my God,” he said. “What are you, a saint or something?” “I stole this mug,” she said. “So, no. Besides, if the school closed down, you’d have to go home and finish your book or something. I did it for you. I’m not even telling anyone else. I mean, aside from my friends. Like you.” “Are you trying to make me have an emotion?” Nate said, his eyes reddening a bit. “Because I’ve spent my whole life learning how to repress and deflect and you’re kind of ruining my thing.”

— Maureen Johnson

97. “Charlotte had been beaten over the head with a lamp by an invisible man. I was prepared to give her a pass.”

— Maureen Johnson

98. “Just then, my phone started ringing. The ring must have been damaged by the water as well, so now it had a high, keening note – kind of the sound I imagine a mermaid might make if you punched her in the face.”

— Maureen Johnson

99. “Hot tea,” he said, holding the cups. “It’s just wrong.”

— Maureen Johnson

100. “Go see old virgins! Now ask a strange boy out, you shy, Retarded thing!”

— Maureen Johnson