Karen Russell Quotes

People really get myopic as they get older. We're not a culture that encourages dreaming or distraction. We're not ever good at just being.

I love to dream, but I never try to dream and think at the same time.

When there are thoughts, it is distraction: when there are no thoughts, it is meditation.

They used to complain at school that I looked out of the window for long periods of time - that sums up my life. I like to look out the window, do nothing, daydream.

The Rock taught me you don't always have to talk or move all the time. You can just stand there and soak it in. Let the crowd just do what they do.

When the mind has a tendency to dream, it is a mistake to keep dreams away from it, to ration its dreams. So long as you distract your mind from its dreams, it will not know them for what they are; you will always be being taken in by the appearance of things, because you will not have grasped their true nature. If a little dreaming is dangerous, the cure for it is not to dream less but to dream more, to dream all the time. One must have a thorough understanding of one

These days, when people are alone, or feel a moment of boredom, they tend to reach for a device. In a movie theater, at a stop sign, at the checkout line at a supermarket and, yes, at a memorial service, reaching for a device becomes so natural that we start to forget that there is a reason, a good reason, to sit still with our thoughts: It does honor to what we are thinking about. It does honor to ourselves.

Right now, though, I wanted not to think forward or backward, but only to lose myself in the words.

I'm only asking you to stop every so often and turn off your mobile device, put down the Angry Birds and the Words with Friends and take a moment. Stop to look up and look around. Pause and check in with yourself - and spend a moment there.

We need time to dream, time to remember, and time to reach the infinite. Time to be.

On a lazy Saturday morning when you're lying in bed, drifting in and out of sleep, there is a space where fantasy and reality become one. Are you awake, or are you dreaming? You see people and things; some are familiar; some are strange. You talk, you feel, but you move without walking; you fly without wings. Your mind and your body exist, but on separate planes. Time stands still. For me, this is the feeling I have when ideas come.

It's easy to spend - especially in this day and age - to spend your time not being in the present. It's very easy to be way ahead. What's tomorrow and the day after that?

Drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the world earth revolves - slowly, evenly, without rushing toward the future.

I don't dream at night, I dream at day, I dream all day; I'm dreaming for living.

To the man whose senses are alive and alert there is not even the need to stir from one's threshold.

In an age of speed, I began to think nothing could be more exhilarating than going slow. In an age of distraction, nothing can feel more luxurious than paying attention. And in an age of constant movement, nothing is more urgent than sitting still.

If you really want to dream, be fully awake.

At a certain point, you say to the woods, to the sea, to the mountains, the world, Now I am ready. Now I will stop and be wholly attentive. You empty yourself and wait, listening.

Praying It doesn’t have to be the blue iris, it could be weeds in a vacant lot, or a few small stones; just pay attention, then patch a few words together and don’t try to make them elaborate, this isn’t a contest but the doorway into thanks, and a silence in which another voice may speak.

My best ideas come to me at unexpected moments, like when I'm reading children's books to my kids (the pictures inspire me), shopping, driving somewhere, seeing different things.

How lovely it is to dream while you are awake.

To slow down is to be taken into the soul of things.

In an age of distraction, nothing can feel more luxurious than paying attention.

Maybe some are so busy waiting, they forget what indescribable beauty is right there in front of them.

I've never done anything but dream. This, and this alone, has been the meaning of my life. My only real concern has been my inner life.