“And once I opened up all that real estate where before I’d been holding anger and regret, I found a lot of things were simpler than I’d made them.”
―
Jess Lourey,
January Thaw
“He watched a lot of TV. I guess many people did. Maybe like him, they preferred their lives delivered to them in a box.” ― Jess Lourey, Unspeakable Things
“The trick of life,” she said, “is that you can’t hold the pain for too long. The magic, either.” ― Jess Lourey, Unspeakable Things
“You’ll recognize those men, the ones inclined to their dark side, because they’ll expect you to carry their load. They’ll smother your anger with their pain, they’ll make you doubt yourself, and they’ll tell you they love you the whole time. Some do it big, like Ed, but most do it in quiet steps, like your father.” ― Jess Lourey, The Quarry Girls
“in the future, you might not want to wear so much makeup. You don’t want to attract the wrong kind of attention.” Maureen’s shoulders tightened. “Why don’t you tell them to stop looking instead of us to stop shining?” ― Jess Lourey, The Quarry Girls
“there's no point in mourning mistakes when you can fix them” ― Jess Lourey, The Toadhouse Trilogy
“I’d been thirteen, not stupid, though a lot of people confuse the two.” ― Jess Lourey, Unspeakable Things
“Small-town kids are pebbles in a river, pushed around by the flow, forming pockets and piles, reforming when the current picks up and we find ourselves in a whole new cluster.” ― Jess Lourey, Unspeakable Things
“Men in packs can do terrible things, things they wouldn’t have the hate to do alone. It’s no excuse, just something you should know.” ― Jess Lourey, The Quarry Girls
“The law might not recognize it, but fifteen’s a girl and sixteen a woman, and you get no map from one land to the next. They air-drop you in, booting a bag of Kissing Potion lip gloss and off-the-shoulder blouses after you. As you’re plummeting, trying to release your parachute and grab for that bag at the same time, they holler out you’re pretty, like they’re giving you some sort of gift, some vital key, but really, it’s meant to distract you from yanking your cord. Girls who land broken are easy prey.” ― Jess Lourey, The Quarry Girls
“He wore his anger like knives, and you didn’t want them aimed at you.” ― Jess Lourey, Unspeakable Things
“Every woman should have pearls,” Mom said, “to remind ourselves that grit under pressure becomes beauty.” ― Jess Lourey, Bloodline
“I heard the distaste in her voice, the disdain for people who lived in trailers. She wouldn’t say it out loud, but there it was. I wanted to ask her what she thought of people who lived in houses with scary drunks, but I didn’t. Those sorts of questions only made her angry.” ― Jess Lourey, Unspeakable Things
“There’s also the truth that 70 percent of serial killer victims are female. You better believe that knowing you’re prey heightens your interest in the predator. You find yourself desperate to make sense of largely random acts of serial murder, believing that if you can understand motivation and hunting patterns, you can protect yourself.” ― Jess Lourey, The Quarry Girls
“While their beneficence ensured no one they approved of ever went hungry, sick or homeless in Lilydale, they also used their influence to control the local population, harass those who stepped out of line and create a culture of fear that had neighbors telling on neighbors.” ― Jess Lourey, Bloodline
“I notice Catherine’s ceramic collectibles for the first time, really see them in a blinding flash of lightning. They’re scattered around the house, but here in the dining room, they have a dedicated hutch. They’re all blackface caricatures. Mammy and Pappy saltshakers, skin the darkest black, aprons the whitest white. Ashtrays that are only pitch-black heads, mouths open to swallow the detritus. A blond-haired, black-skinned baby eating a slice of watermelon twice his size, his face so gape-mouthed that he appears more fish than human. An Amos and Andy plate.” ― Jess Lourey, Bloodline
“I knew him from one of my dad’s parties, knew him better than I wanted to.” ― Jess Lourey, Unspeakable Things
“As far as she could tell, men didn’t have close friendships, not like women did, but they still had that human need for connection. Every movie and TV show and magazine article told them it was their job to go out and grab what they wanted at the same time it told them that women were theirs for the taking.” ― Jess Lourey, The Quarry Girls
“Historian Peter Vronsky hypothesizes that while several factors must align to make a murderer (genetics and frontal lobe injuries being two common ones), World War II was responsible for this golden age of serial killers a generation later.” ― Jess Lourey, The Quarry Girls
“He watched a lot of TV. I guess many people did. Maybe like him, they preferred their lives delivered to them in a box.” ― Jess Lourey, Unspeakable Things
“The trick of life,” she said, “is that you can’t hold the pain for too long. The magic, either.” ― Jess Lourey, Unspeakable Things
“You’ll recognize those men, the ones inclined to their dark side, because they’ll expect you to carry their load. They’ll smother your anger with their pain, they’ll make you doubt yourself, and they’ll tell you they love you the whole time. Some do it big, like Ed, but most do it in quiet steps, like your father.” ― Jess Lourey, The Quarry Girls
“in the future, you might not want to wear so much makeup. You don’t want to attract the wrong kind of attention.” Maureen’s shoulders tightened. “Why don’t you tell them to stop looking instead of us to stop shining?” ― Jess Lourey, The Quarry Girls
“there's no point in mourning mistakes when you can fix them” ― Jess Lourey, The Toadhouse Trilogy
“I’d been thirteen, not stupid, though a lot of people confuse the two.” ― Jess Lourey, Unspeakable Things
“Small-town kids are pebbles in a river, pushed around by the flow, forming pockets and piles, reforming when the current picks up and we find ourselves in a whole new cluster.” ― Jess Lourey, Unspeakable Things
“Men in packs can do terrible things, things they wouldn’t have the hate to do alone. It’s no excuse, just something you should know.” ― Jess Lourey, The Quarry Girls
“The law might not recognize it, but fifteen’s a girl and sixteen a woman, and you get no map from one land to the next. They air-drop you in, booting a bag of Kissing Potion lip gloss and off-the-shoulder blouses after you. As you’re plummeting, trying to release your parachute and grab for that bag at the same time, they holler out you’re pretty, like they’re giving you some sort of gift, some vital key, but really, it’s meant to distract you from yanking your cord. Girls who land broken are easy prey.” ― Jess Lourey, The Quarry Girls
“He wore his anger like knives, and you didn’t want them aimed at you.” ― Jess Lourey, Unspeakable Things
“Every woman should have pearls,” Mom said, “to remind ourselves that grit under pressure becomes beauty.” ― Jess Lourey, Bloodline
“I heard the distaste in her voice, the disdain for people who lived in trailers. She wouldn’t say it out loud, but there it was. I wanted to ask her what she thought of people who lived in houses with scary drunks, but I didn’t. Those sorts of questions only made her angry.” ― Jess Lourey, Unspeakable Things
“There’s also the truth that 70 percent of serial killer victims are female. You better believe that knowing you’re prey heightens your interest in the predator. You find yourself desperate to make sense of largely random acts of serial murder, believing that if you can understand motivation and hunting patterns, you can protect yourself.” ― Jess Lourey, The Quarry Girls
“While their beneficence ensured no one they approved of ever went hungry, sick or homeless in Lilydale, they also used their influence to control the local population, harass those who stepped out of line and create a culture of fear that had neighbors telling on neighbors.” ― Jess Lourey, Bloodline
“I notice Catherine’s ceramic collectibles for the first time, really see them in a blinding flash of lightning. They’re scattered around the house, but here in the dining room, they have a dedicated hutch. They’re all blackface caricatures. Mammy and Pappy saltshakers, skin the darkest black, aprons the whitest white. Ashtrays that are only pitch-black heads, mouths open to swallow the detritus. A blond-haired, black-skinned baby eating a slice of watermelon twice his size, his face so gape-mouthed that he appears more fish than human. An Amos and Andy plate.” ― Jess Lourey, Bloodline
“I knew him from one of my dad’s parties, knew him better than I wanted to.” ― Jess Lourey, Unspeakable Things
“As far as she could tell, men didn’t have close friendships, not like women did, but they still had that human need for connection. Every movie and TV show and magazine article told them it was their job to go out and grab what they wanted at the same time it told them that women were theirs for the taking.” ― Jess Lourey, The Quarry Girls
“Historian Peter Vronsky hypothesizes that while several factors must align to make a murderer (genetics and frontal lobe injuries being two common ones), World War II was responsible for this golden age of serial killers a generation later.” ― Jess Lourey, The Quarry Girls
