Allegra's Austen wrote about the impact of financial need on the intimate lives of women. If she'd worked in a bookstore, Allegra would have shelved Austen in the horror section.

— Karen Joy Fowler

A man says something. Sometimes it turns out to be the truth, but this has nothing to do with the man who says it.

— Karen Joy Fowler

An "attack on SeaWorld" might mean a bomb, or it might mean graffiti and glitter and a cream pie in the face. The government doesn't always seem to distinguish between the two.

— Karen Joy Fowler

A nonhuman animal had better have a good lawyer. In 1508, Bartholomew Chastened earned fame and fortune for his eloquent representation of the rats of his French province. These rats had been charged with destroying the barley crop and also with ignoring the court order to appear and defend themselves. Bartholomew Chastened argued successfully that the rats hadn't come because the court had failed to provide reasonable protection from the village cats along the route.

— Karen Joy Fowler

Because what could be more Casablanca? Suddenly Harlow saw that what she’d always wanted was a man of principle. A man of action. A domestic terrorist. Every girl’s dream, if she can’t have a vampire. (Chapter four pg 202)

— Karen Joy Fowler

But I knew that, both in fairyland and the real world, too, wishes were a slipperier thing.

— Karen Joy Fowler

Contrary to our metaphors, humans are much more imitative than the other apes. For example: if chimps watch a demonstration on how to get food out of a puzzle box, they, in their turn, skip any unnecessary steps, go straight to the treat. Human children overimitate, reproducing each step regardless of its necessity. There is some reason why, now that it’s our behavior, being slavishly imitative is superior to being thoughtful and efficient, but I forget exactly what that reason is.

— Karen Joy Fowler

Emotion and instinct were the basis of all our decisions, our actions, everything we valued, the way we saw the world. Reason and rationality were a thin coat of paint on a ragged surface.

— Karen Joy Fowler

Every mother can easily imagine losing a child. Motherhood is always half loss anyway. The three-year-old is lost at five, the five-year-old at nine. We consort with ghosts, even as we sit and eat with, scold and kiss, their current corporeal forms. We speak to people who have vanished and, when they answer us, they do the same. Naturally, the information in these speeches is garbled in the translation.

— Karen Joy Fowler

He envied the bark, which had been, in the course of one lifetime, both forest and fire. One endured; one destroyed.

— Karen Joy Fowler