Karen Thompson Walker Quotations

Nothing has happened to me out of the closet that was anywhere near as dangerous as being closeted.

I'm an only child, and I think one of the sweet things about that is that my parents are really interested in every aspect of my life.

I feel like writing a book there's always a version in your head that's an amazing version, but then you write the version that you can write.

I can write all the way through the morning, when my mind is clear, and there are no distractions.

I guess it never is what you worry over that comes to pass in the end. The real catastrophes are always different—unimagined, unprepared for, unknown.

I kept quiet, but the knowledge gathered like a storm. I could see the future: My father wasn't coming back. And this one fact seemed to point to other facts and others still: Love frays and humans fail, time passes, eras end.

Sometimes death is proof of life. Sometimes decay points out a certain verve.

I've become a collector of stories about unlikely returns: the sudden reappearance of the long-lost son, the father found, the lovers reunited after forty years. Once in awhile, a letter does fall behind a post office desk and lie there for years before it's finally discovered and delivered to the rightful address. The seemingly brain-dead sometimes wake up and start talking. I'm always on the lookout for proof that what is done can sometimes be undone.

But the past is long, and the future is short.

Who knows how fast a second-guess can travel? Who has ever measured the exact speed of regret?