Karen Russell Quotes

In the past, I was sometimes put in this women's lit category, and I was never really sure that was the appropriate place for me - although I certainly recognize it can be helpful and correct for other people.

I just feel as though it's become a situation where people have manifested this caricature of who I am, and they act as if there's no real person inside of it.

Whatever labels are being pinned on me have nothing to do with me.

I did not want to be the gay artist, and I talked to my manager all the time, like, I don't want to lead with that. I didn't want people to look at me like that's all I am.

Sometimes you become the person people try to pin you into a corner to be, which is not really fair.

It's a little strange when part of your family is in the public eye, and you're being put into a box that you're not necessarily in. That's when it starts to feel a bit odd: When you're being told who you are, but it's incorrect.

I have this long-running idea that the distinction between fiction and nonfiction is not just, 'Did it happen or didn't it happen?' It's one of form.

I don't view myself as a 'trans actor' or a 'trans model.' I mean, I am - it's part of who I am - but it's not something that solely defines me.

It's hard to describe the work of the British-born Australian writer Elizabeth Jolley without somewhat misrepresenting it.

Little girl, he called me. A little girl who is stressed out to the point of paranoia. That is not me, but now, it's who the Candor think I am.

I thought that I wasn't an essayist because I just didn't see myself in a lot of the essays that were popular at the time. That's why I joined the poetry program in grad school.

When people use the term magic realism, usually they only mean 'magic' and they don't hear 'realism', whereas the way in which magic realism actually works is for the magic to be rooted in the real. It's both things. It's not just a fairytale moment. It's the surrealism that arises out of the real.

...In another time, What cannot be seen will define us, and we shall be prompted To say that language is error, and all things are wronged By representation. The self, we shall say, can never be Seen with a disguise, and never be seen without one.

People don't like to say Fantasy they say Magic Realism which means Fantasy written by somebody I went to university with.

If I could get their attention long enough, I felt they would see beneath the boobs and find the heart, and that they would see beneath the wig and find the brains. I think one big part of whatever appeal I possess is the fact that I look totally one way and that I am totally another. I look artificial, but I'm not.

When I was at college, my nickname was Keds, because I wore Keds. I guess it wasn't really a nickname, because nicknames are usually given to you by people who are your friends and who know you.

It is difficult to know oneself, but it isn't easy to paint oneself either.

I don't like it when they [media critics] see me as this little person who doesn't know what to do with herself -- like I have no idea what I want, like I'm just a puppet ... That's demeaning to me, because that ain't how it is, and it never was.

So many times we're portrayed in ways that we don't want to be portrayed, in ways that make us seem so ridiculous.

I am thoroughly tired of the fable style of narrative and shall do my best to get up something entirely different and possibly little more worthy.

I'm really excited that the fashion industry is evolving, doing a much better job at representation, with women of color, women of different shapes, sizes, and creeds. It's been a long time coming... There were issues of tokenism, issues of misrepresentation. I'm optimistic that I see the change, the conversation that these archetypes gotta go. We can be very political and have long weaves down to our asses.

The stuff that I have perhaps become known for that's based on fact, and English statesmen shouting at each other all the time, doesn't entirely represent who I am. I am not a politics wonk.

It is a condition of monsters that they do not perceive themselves as such. The dragon, you know, hunkered in the village devouring maidens, heard the townsfolk cry 'Monster!' and looked behind him.

I'm a perfectly good carrot that everyone is trying to turn into a rose. As a carrot, I have good color and a nice leafy top. When I'm carved into a rose, I turn brown and wither.

People didn't relate to me as being Chinese or white, just being a hippie, a long-haired hippie.