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I didn't want a world in which I had to choose between blind human babies and tortured monkey ones. To be frank, that's the sort of choice I expect science to protect me from, not give me.Karen Joy Fowler
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Who knows you better than your own brother?Karen Joy Fowler
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I am the daughter of a psychologist. I know that the thing ostensibly being studied is rarely the thing being studied. (We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, p. 99)Karen Joy Fowler
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Maybe anosognosia, the inability to see your own disability, is the human condition and I'm the only one who doesn't suffer from it.Karen Joy Fowler
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Language does this to our memories–simplifies, solidifies, codifies, mummifies. An oft-told story is like a photograph in a family album; eventually, it replaces the moment it was meant to capture.Karen Joy Fowler
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We call them feelings because we feel them.Karen Joy Fowler
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We used to believe that memories were best retrieved in the same place that they were first laid down. Like everything else we think we know, that's not so clear anymore.Karen Joy Fowler
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The happening and telling are very different things. This doesn’t mean that the story isn’t true, only that I honestly don’t know anymore if I really remember it or only remember how to tell it. Language does this to our memories, simplifies, solidifies, codifies, mummifies. An off-told story is like a photograph in a family album. Eventually it replaces the moment it was meant to capture.Karen Joy Fowler
9
An "attack on SeaWorld" might mean a bomb, or it might mean graffiti and glitter and a cream pie in the face. The government doesn't always seem to distinguish between the two.Karen Joy Fowler
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I admired her choices though I wouldn't have made them.Karen Joy Fowler
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Emotion and instinct were the basis of all our decisions, our actions, everything we valued, the way we saw the world. Reason and rationality were a thin coat of paint on a ragged surface.Karen Joy Fowler
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You can’t imagine the white-hot fury someone who can’t sleep has toward the beautiful dreamer beside him.Karen Joy Fowler
13
A nonhuman animal had better have a good lawyer. In 1508, Bartholomé Chassenée earned fame and fortune for his eloquent representation of the rats of his French province. These rats had been charged with destroying the barley crop and also with ignoring the court order to appear and defend themselves. Bartholomé Chassenée argued successfully that the rats hadn't come because the court had failed to provide reasonable protection from the village cats along the route. .Karen Joy Fowler
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Contrary to our metaphors, humans are much more imitative than the other apes. For example: if chimps watch a demonstration on how to get food out of a puzzle box, they, in their turn, skip any unnecessary steps, go straight to the treat. Human children overimitate, reproducing each step regardless of its necessity. There is some reason why, now that it’s our behavior, being slavishly imitative is superior to being thoughtful and efficient, but I forget exactly what that reason is. .Karen Joy Fowler
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We are so excited that, in the strangely illuminating phrase my mother favours, we’re completely beside ourselves.Karen Joy Fowler
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There was no point in telling my father. He'd never let me quit after only one day. He couldn't help me and he'd make some terrible blunder if he tried. Parents are too innocent for the Boschian landscapes of middle school.Karen Joy Fowler
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So many problems, however infinitely varied they first appear, turn out to be matters of money. I can't tell you how much this offends me.Karen Joy Fowler
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Like they say, you never know a person till you’ve done time with them.Karen Joy Fowler