“The person who could be truly alone, in the company of no one but oneself and one’s own thoughts—that person was stronger than anyone else. More ready. More prepared.”
―
Simone St. James,
The Sun Down Motel
“That was what the books did—they turned off your thinking for you, put their thoughts in your head so you wouldn't have your own.” ― Simone St. James, The Broken Girls
“For the odd girls, the nerdy girls, and the murderinos. This one is yours.” ― Simone St. James, The Sun Down Motel
“You can't imagine how hard it is to come home from hell and be expected to pick up the threads of a life. Apply for jobs, go to a factory, punch in, punch out. Put your lunch in a bag and get on the omnibus every day. Like nothing happened. Nothing.” ― Simone St. James, The Haunting of Maddy Clare
“I believed in Oxford, and cobblestoned squares, and old bricks thick with ivy,a nd rainy days curled up reading books. I believed in my mother's strong coffee and in the lonely, aching scent of early dawn before anyone else in my boardinghouse was awake. I believed in my favorite men's cardigan and the way the wind felt on the back of my neck. I believed in life as it lay before me, spinning out slowly, day after day of warm springs and thunderstorms and laughter. These were the things I believed in.” ― Simone St. James, An Inquiry into Love and Death
“I was doomed to it. For there was no way to convince him that, with all his scars, the terrible truth was that he was still the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.” ― Simone St. James, The Haunting of Maddy Clare
“Books were her salvation. As a child, she’d had a shelf of childhood favorites that she loved enough to read over and over again. But after, during the hospital stay and the long voyage and the cold days in Idlewild’s dreary hallways, books became more than mere stories. They were her lifeline, the pages as essential to her as breathing.” ― Simone St. James, The Broken Girls
“Sonia envied her, the way she could turn her brain off, think about absolutely nothing. It was a trick Sonia herself had never learned. That was what books did - they turned off your thinking for you, put their thoughts in your head so you wouldn't have your own.” ― Simone St. James, The Broken Girls
“I put my book down, finding a Post-it note to use as a bookmark, because folding the corner of a page—even in a thirty-year-old book—is sacrilege.” ― Simone St. James, The Sun Down Motel
“This place is dark.” “Some of us like the dark. It’s what we know.” ― Simone St. James, The Sun Down Motel
“But a novel always ends, the lies come to the surface, and the deaths are explained. Maybe one of the bad characters gets away with something—that’s fashionable right now—but you are still left with a sense that things are balanced, that dark things come to light, and that the bad person will, at least, most likely be miserable.” ― Simone St. James, The Book of Cold Cases
“Books, Sonia had decided, were what she would live with when she finally left this place. She would work in a library—any library, anywhere. She’d sweep the floors if she had to. But she’d work in a library, and she’d read the books every day for the rest of her life.” ― Simone St. James, The Broken Girls
“the books I read were the dark kind—about scary things like disappearances and murders, especially the true ones. While other kids read J. K. Rowling, I read Stephen King. While other kids did history reports about the Civil War, I read about Lizzie Borden.” ― Simone St. James, The Sun Down Motel
“Am I bitter or am I sweet? Ladies can be either.” ― Simone St. James, The Book of Cold Cases
“I took my glasses off and set them to the table... The world went pleasantly blurry, and I didn´t have to see the details anymore.” ― Simone St. James, The Sun Down Motel
“I think it’s instructive to be awake in the middle of the night every once in a while. To really see what you’re missing while you’re usually sleeping.” ― Simone St. James, The Sun Down Motel
“What will I write in this beautiful book?She carried the book to class for the rest of the day, and that night she put it under her pillow, still blank. She liked it blank right now, liked to know that it was waiting, listening. Just like her friends.” ― Simone St. James, The Broken Girls
“There are large moments in life; but sometimes it is the small moments - the casual moments - that change everything. The second's absent wandering of attention before an accident. The choice to take one road, instead of another.” ― Simone St. James, The Haunting of Maddy Clare
“It made no sense, but guilt doesn't have to. It simply exists, weighing you down and chocking you until you can't breathe anymore.” ― Simone St. James, The Book of Cold Cases
“That was what the books did—they turned off your thinking for you, put their thoughts in your head so you wouldn't have your own.” ― Simone St. James, The Broken Girls
“For the odd girls, the nerdy girls, and the murderinos. This one is yours.” ― Simone St. James, The Sun Down Motel
“You can't imagine how hard it is to come home from hell and be expected to pick up the threads of a life. Apply for jobs, go to a factory, punch in, punch out. Put your lunch in a bag and get on the omnibus every day. Like nothing happened. Nothing.” ― Simone St. James, The Haunting of Maddy Clare
“I believed in Oxford, and cobblestoned squares, and old bricks thick with ivy,a nd rainy days curled up reading books. I believed in my mother's strong coffee and in the lonely, aching scent of early dawn before anyone else in my boardinghouse was awake. I believed in my favorite men's cardigan and the way the wind felt on the back of my neck. I believed in life as it lay before me, spinning out slowly, day after day of warm springs and thunderstorms and laughter. These were the things I believed in.” ― Simone St. James, An Inquiry into Love and Death
“I was doomed to it. For there was no way to convince him that, with all his scars, the terrible truth was that he was still the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.” ― Simone St. James, The Haunting of Maddy Clare
“Books were her salvation. As a child, she’d had a shelf of childhood favorites that she loved enough to read over and over again. But after, during the hospital stay and the long voyage and the cold days in Idlewild’s dreary hallways, books became more than mere stories. They were her lifeline, the pages as essential to her as breathing.” ― Simone St. James, The Broken Girls
“Sonia envied her, the way she could turn her brain off, think about absolutely nothing. It was a trick Sonia herself had never learned. That was what books did - they turned off your thinking for you, put their thoughts in your head so you wouldn't have your own.” ― Simone St. James, The Broken Girls
“I put my book down, finding a Post-it note to use as a bookmark, because folding the corner of a page—even in a thirty-year-old book—is sacrilege.” ― Simone St. James, The Sun Down Motel
“This place is dark.” “Some of us like the dark. It’s what we know.” ― Simone St. James, The Sun Down Motel
“But a novel always ends, the lies come to the surface, and the deaths are explained. Maybe one of the bad characters gets away with something—that’s fashionable right now—but you are still left with a sense that things are balanced, that dark things come to light, and that the bad person will, at least, most likely be miserable.” ― Simone St. James, The Book of Cold Cases
“Books, Sonia had decided, were what she would live with when she finally left this place. She would work in a library—any library, anywhere. She’d sweep the floors if she had to. But she’d work in a library, and she’d read the books every day for the rest of her life.” ― Simone St. James, The Broken Girls
“the books I read were the dark kind—about scary things like disappearances and murders, especially the true ones. While other kids read J. K. Rowling, I read Stephen King. While other kids did history reports about the Civil War, I read about Lizzie Borden.” ― Simone St. James, The Sun Down Motel
“Am I bitter or am I sweet? Ladies can be either.” ― Simone St. James, The Book of Cold Cases
“I took my glasses off and set them to the table... The world went pleasantly blurry, and I didn´t have to see the details anymore.” ― Simone St. James, The Sun Down Motel
“I think it’s instructive to be awake in the middle of the night every once in a while. To really see what you’re missing while you’re usually sleeping.” ― Simone St. James, The Sun Down Motel
“What will I write in this beautiful book?She carried the book to class for the rest of the day, and that night she put it under her pillow, still blank. She liked it blank right now, liked to know that it was waiting, listening. Just like her friends.” ― Simone St. James, The Broken Girls
“There are large moments in life; but sometimes it is the small moments - the casual moments - that change everything. The second's absent wandering of attention before an accident. The choice to take one road, instead of another.” ― Simone St. James, The Haunting of Maddy Clare
“It made no sense, but guilt doesn't have to. It simply exists, weighing you down and chocking you until you can't breathe anymore.” ― Simone St. James, The Book of Cold Cases
