Karen Russell Quotes

I wouldn't change a single thing, because one change alters every moment that follows it.

Significant consequences can begin very inconsequentially. That's one thing that fascinates me. The other thing that fascinates me is how accident can undermine something that's unfolding, something that might have played out differently otherwise.

There's no limit to how complicated things can get, on account of one thing always leading to another.

Every action we have is going to have repercussions in ways we could not anticipate.

He picked up the letter Q and hurled it into a distant privet bush where it hit a young rabbit. The rabbit hurtled off in terror and didn’t stop till it was set upon and eaten by a fox which choked on one of its bones and died on the bank of a stream which subsequently washed it away. During the following weeks Ford Perfect swallowed his pride and struck up a relationship with a girl who had been a personnel officer on Golgafrincham, and he was terribly upset when she suddenly passed away as a result of drinking water from a pool that had been polluted by the body of a dead fox.

Sometimes something catastrophic can occur in a split second that changes a person's life forever; other times one minor incident can lead to another and then another and another, eventually setting off just as big a change in a body's life.

If only we could see the endless string of consequences that result from our smallest actions. But we can't know better until knowing better is useless.

For a line of dominoes to fall, one has to fall first, which then leaves the other choiceless to do the same. And that domino that falls, we're hoping that, OK, the next person that sees this is inspired to be a domino. Being the domino, for me, looks like speaking up and doing the things that are really difficult, especially when they are needed, with the hope that others will follow suit.

All of our actions have consequences whether we know it or not. We never know what people are going through until something tragic happens - if they don't talk about it.

Isolated incidents have lateral, lasting implications.

Nothing in life is without cause and effect. Nothing is merely a shell. Everything has some motive.

You cannot go through life without cause and effect.

Ramifications of small decisions can be pretty large.

In space, everything is dependent on everything else and one hiccup causes a lot of ripple effects.

The Warrior knows about the "waterfall effect".

That chain of relationships made me think of how connections are made--you read a book, you meet a person, you have a single experience, and your life is changed in some way. No act, therefore, however small, should be dismissed or ignored.

There is no act, however trivial, but has its train of consequences.

Each life creates endless ripples.

In an economy, an act, a habit, an institution, or a law, gives birth not only to an effect, but to a series of effects. Of these effects, the first only is immediate; it manifests itself simultaneously with its cause - it is seen. The others unfold in succession - they are not seen. Now this difference is enormous, for it is often true that when the immediate consequence is favorable, the ultimate consequences are fatal, and the converse.

You start a question, and it's like starting a stone. You sit quietly on the top of a hill; and away the stone goes, starting others.

Like a stone thrown into a pond, a good deed can create ripples that extend far beyond the initial splash.

But once you throw a stone, there are ripples in the pond, even if you remove the rock.

There are threads in our lives. You pull one, and everything else gets affected.

What we call little things are merely the causes of great things; they are the beginning, the embryo, and it is the point of departure which, generally speaking, decides the whole future of an existence. One single black speck may be the beginning of gangrene, of a storm, of a revolution.

Our little pebble of poor performance helps to start, or to sustain, an avalanche.