Karen Russell Quotes

Girl I know it's real cause I've been around it. You only want what's real you just never found it

Meaning lies in the confrontation of contradiction - the coincidencia apositorum. That’s what we really feel, not these rational schemes that are constantly beating us over the head with the “thou shalts” and “thou should”, but rather a recovery of the real ambiguity of being and an ability to see ourselves as at once powerful and weak, noble and ignoble, future-oriented, past-facing.

There's a truth to the fact that it's hard to be real. It's easy to be indulgent. It's easy to be bubble gum, but it's hard to find a real thing that really makes your soul tick. It's painful and honest. It can be more challenging than just a sad song.

She used to say 'You can be whoever you want, even yourself'.... Yeah, I show up knowin exactly who I was and never leave as myself

I am learning that a life isn't real unless someone else knows its reality. And I want my life to be real.

Be true to yourself. But that's something everyone says and no one means. No one wants you to be yourself. They want you to be the version of yourself that they like.

Have you noticed that only in time of illness or disaster or death are people real?

Be who you are, not who the world wants you to be.

If it's knowledge and wisdom you want, then seek out the company of those who do real work for an honest purpose.

I want everything, no matter what concept or genre, to feel real, because it is real. I want to keep making real music, I hope people remember me for that, that's a good thing to be remembered for.

If there's anyone out there that has never said something that they wish they could take back -- if you're out there, please pick up that stone and throw it so hard at my head that it kills me. Please. I want to meet you...I is what I is, and I'm not changing.

There's an honesty to the wolf world that is liberating. There's no diplomacy, no decorum. You tell your enemy you hate him; you show your admiration by confessing the truth. That directness doesn't work with humans, who are masters of subterfuge. Does this dress make me look fat? Do you really love me? Did you miss me? When a person asks this, she doesn't want to know the real answer. She wants you to lie to her. After two years of living with wolves, I had forgotten how many lies it takes to build a relationship.

Do you expect sincerity in man when hypocrisy is the very keynote of human nature? We are nurtured on it; we are schooled in it, we live by it; and we rarely realize it.’ – Book 3, Chapter 16

It is fine to imitate a being you respect, but you cannot become that very being. Imitation is something one does to grow and develop. It is not something you use to deceive yourself. You absorb in yourself the things you think have some kind of value, but even if you try to find the meaning about your true self you will not find anything. Because those who cannot accept their real self always fail.

Sincerity is a soul quality that God has given to every human being, but not all express it.

Everybody will die, but very few people want to be reminded of that fact.

An infinite question is often destroyed by finite answers. To define everything is to annihilate much that gives us laughter and joy... If I try self-consciously to become a person, I will never be one. The most real people, those who are able to forget their selfish selves, who have true compassion, are usually the most distinct individuals

Men who have a lot of charm have it in place of something real that you are eventually going to want from them and find that they do not have.

I had a perfect life in my reach once, and it was a crashing bore. Perfect is too clean, too easy. I don't want perfect any more than I want to be perfect. I want imperfect.

Whoever wants to set a good example must add a grain of foolishness to his virtue: then others can imitate and yet at the same time surpass the one they imitate-which human beings love to do.

Ask yourself, 'what's more important - being real and being myself, or becoming successful? And ask the question knowing that you never actually have to choose between being real and being successful. You simply have to choose between being realand striving to be successful. Get the difference?

Real elegance is simply a true encounter with oneself.

Nothing is real if you don't believe in who you are!

We all have a thirst for wonder. It's a deeply human quality. Science and religion are both bound up with it. What I'm saying is, you don't have to make stories up, you don't have to exaggerate. There's wonder and awe enough in the real world. Nature's a lot better at inventing wonders than we are.

People's weaker side is not necessarily their truer self.