Top 280 Maureen Johnson Quotes (2025 Update)
Page 3 of 6

101. “You don’t get things past librarians.”

— Maureen Johnson

102. “Her kung fu is that powerful.”

— Maureen Johnson

103. “She didn’t want to be brave anymore. It was exhausting. Anxiety crawled under her skin all the time, like some alien creature that might burst through at any moment. Stevie.”

— Maureen Johnson

104. “You could wear the same outfit every single day and no guy – who isn’t gay – will notice.”

— Maureen Johnson

105. “Think about what you could be stopping – someone who uses racist policies to hurt or kill people. Someone who could do untold damage to the environment. Someone who could start an illegal war to distract from his political problems. You know, Vi, that he’s capable of that.”

— Maureen Johnson

106. “I don’t mind bigots. You’re allowed to be bigoted, if that makes you happy. Just do it at home. And not around the children.”

— Maureen Johnson

107. “Anxiety, her therapist had told her many times, never killed anyone. It felt like death, but it was an illusion. A terrible illusion that inhabited your body and tried to make it its puppet. It told you nothing mattered because everything was made of fear.”

— Maureen Johnson

108. “Knowledge is the heaviest weight of all.”

— Maureen Johnson

109. “He grinned the grin of a presenter on some educational show with a cartoon dog, as if to say, “Come with me if you want to learn.”

— Maureen Johnson

110. “Early the next morning, they were on a tram out to the far edge of Amsterdam. Ginny liked the tram. It was like an overgrown toy train that had gotten loose on the streets. She looked out and saw the Netherlands wobbling by – its ancient houses and constant canals and people in practical shoes.”

— Maureen Johnson

111. “I always wanted stories to be real, so I started writing my own.”

— Maureen Johnson

112. “I annoy people,” he said. “Believe me. I’m aware. It’s an effective way to communicate if you don’t have any other options. If you can’t get in through the door, throw a rock through the window. And I think maybe you’re the same way. – David, to Stevie.”

— Maureen Johnson

113. “Also, when on a campaign to convince a stranger that you aren’t a few fries short of a Happy Meal, throwing around phrases like “tangentially Swedish” is not the best way to go.”

— Maureen Johnson

114. “Debbie had to get up and slice me a thick piece of cake before she could answer. And I do mean thick. Harry Potter volume seven thick. I could have knocked out a burglar with this piece of cake. Once I tasted it, though, it seemed just the right size.”

— Maureen Johnson

115. “The whole thing smelled like a thrift shop that had been baked in a low oven and felt like a too-tight and too-long hug by a rejected Muppet.”

— Maureen Johnson

116. “Pumpkins were the watermelons of fall.”

— Maureen Johnson

117. “There is something about early mornings that changes your perceptions subtly. The light is new; no one has put on the defences of the day. All is reset and not quite real yet.”

— Maureen Johnson

118. “Stevie had often wondered how these conversations worked, when people talked about feelings and touching and all of the stuff she thought was meant to be kept carefully bottled inside her own personal apothecary. Now someone wanted in, to take the lids off the vials, to peer at the contents. Stevie was unaware that people were even allowed to talk about emotions this frankly. This was not how things happened at home.”

— Maureen Johnson

119. “The moon was thin like a hook, and the owls were calling. The smell of fall leaves blew on the wind and Hayes was dead.”

— Maureen Johnson

120. “Fashions come and go, but jawlines are eternal.”

— Maureen Johnson

121. “Walk really, really carefully. It’s not complicated, but if you mess up, you’ll die, so pay attention.”

— Maureen Johnson

122. “Nothing was quite like it was supposed to be.”

— Maureen Johnson

123. “Stevie had great hopes for the boarding school dining hall. She knew better than to hope for floating candlesticks and ghosts, but long wooden tables didn’t seem out of the question. Long tables were also featured in so may murder mysteries, when all the guests of the house were arranged, eyeing each other over their wineglasses, wondering who Lord Dudley was going to put in his will or who might have killed Ratchets with the golf club.”

— Maureen Johnson

124. “People can’t really sympathize with you properly when you’ve woken them up.”

— Maureen Johnson

125. “I could envision it all to clearly: Stuart or Debbie finding the dented door off its hinges, lying in the snow. “She came in, ravaged the boy, stole plastic bags, and ripped off the door in her escape,” the police would say in the APB. “Probably making her way to bust her parents out of jail.”

— Maureen Johnson

126. “David had, in fact, done the Sherlock thing that Stevie had dismissed for herself, specifically, the BBC one. He was wearing a sharply cut blue dress shirt, slender, tailored pants, and a long gray-black coat with a red interior. He had teased out his hair a bit and made sure it curled. In many ways, it was a perfect costume while not being a costume at all. And it was obviously intentional, directed at her.”

— Maureen Johnson

127. “It’s always awkward when someone doesn’t realize you’re joking and devotes thought time to what you’ve said. Double that when the person is wearing tinfoil.”

— Maureen Johnson

128. “She didn’t even notice right away that a small animal had come out from behind a nearby car and was slowly making its way toward the trash can she was standing near. She flipped through some old files in her mind, trying to come up with what this thing might be, and after a few seconds decided that – impossible as it seemed – it was a fox.”

— Maureen Johnson

129. “There is nothing about a bad situation that fourteen hyper cheerleaders can’t worsen.”

— Maureen Johnson

130. “Except for his eyes. Those were completely bloodshot. “What time did you get up?” David said, looking him over. “Four twenty?”

— Maureen Johnson

131. “It just seemed like telling the truth would mean admitting some weakness.”

— Maureen Johnson

132. “Mostly, Stevie forgot she had a body, and when someone else noticed her body, it made her look down and go, huh. Would you look at that. How long has that been there?”

— Maureen Johnson

133. “She firmly held the theory that everyone gets at least one very stupid superpower.”

— Maureen Johnson

134. “Don-Keun was a new man. The moment they arrived, he vanished for a second. We heard muffled ecstatic screaming coming from somewhere in the back of the Waffle House kitchen, then he reappeared, his face shining with the kind of radiance usually associated with religious epiphany.”

— Maureen Johnson

135. “The package contained a collection of envelopes much like the first. They were all blue. They were all made of heavy paper. Good quality. The kind from one of those boutique paper stores. The front of each envelope was either illustrated in pen and ink or watercolor, and they were bundled together with an overstretched rubber band that had been doubled around them.”

— Maureen Johnson

136. “Slippers always seemed like kind of a nonsense item until she came to Ellingham and felt the bathroom floor on the first proper day of wintry weather. Once skin touched tile and part of her soul died, she knew what slippers were for.”

— Maureen Johnson

137. “I like to look nice when I go to see His Majesty, the Burger King.”

— Maureen Johnson

138. “Sherlock said, “I consider that a man’s brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose.”

— Maureen Johnson

139. “Periodically someone would encourage her to walk through the woods or try out the mountain bike. Stevie viewed these offers with grave suspicion and declined.”

— Maureen Johnson

140. “Before I take you into the beating heart of the story, let’s get one thing out of the way. I know from experience that when it comes up later, it will distract you so much that you won’t be able to concentrate on anything else I will tell you. My name is Jubilee Dougal. Take a moment and let it sink in.”

— Maureen Johnson

141. “Anxiety and excitement are cousins; they can be mistaken for each other at points. They have many features in common – the bubbling, carbonated feel of the emotion, the speed, the wide eyes and racing heart. But where excitement tends to take you up, into the higher, brighter levels of feeling, anxiety pulls you down, making you feel like you have to grip the earth to keep from sliding off as it turns.”

— Maureen Johnson

142. “Dawn broke over Ellingham Academy in a swirl of rose pink going into a bloodless blue. Stevie watched the newly risen sun come up over the Great House like a celestial game of peekaboo.”

— Maureen Johnson

143. “The questions that creep around at four thirty in the morning are not the kind that can be easily dismissed. You can beat them with a shovel, and they’ll just keep getting back up.”

— Maureen Johnson

144. “Few words are more chilling when put together than make friends.”

— Maureen Johnson

145. “Hayes had a smile like a hammock – just get in, go to sleep, forget your troubles and cares.”

— Maureen Johnson

146. “I’ll go to Venice and drown my sorrows.”

— Maureen Johnson

147. “So much of anxiety was anxiety about having anxiety.”

— Maureen Johnson

148. “Before she could answer, the waiter sprang at his chance to brush some crumbs from David’s chair. He had been hanging around their table like a vulture, waiting for them to eat the last papadum crumb so he could take away the basket. He eyed the last piece sadly, as if it were the barrier between him and eternal happiness. Ginny grabbed it and shoved it in her mouth. The man looked relieved and took the basket but immediately returned to stare mournfully at their water glasses.”

— Maureen Johnson

149. “I looked at the stained-glass image of the lamb in the window above me, but that only reminded me that lambs are famous for being led to slaughter, or sometimes hanging out with lions in ill-advised relationships.”

— Maureen Johnson

150. “It took about three minutes for the unassuming Waffle House to become the new offices of the law firm of Amber, Amber, Amber, and Madison. They set up camp in a clump of booths in the corner opposite from us. A few of them gave me an “oh, good, you are still alive” nod, but for the most part, they had no interest in anyone else.”

— Maureen Johnson