Gregg Olsen > Quotes

“If only these walls could talk…the world would know just how hard it is to tell the truth in a story in which everyone’s a liar.”
― Gregg Olsen, Envy

“Some of this story is completely true. And some of it isn't. Like truth, evil comes in all sorts of flavors. Some bitter. Some deceptively sweet. Sometimes it comes with a heavy price. While most people don't invite evil into their lives, the dirty little secret is that an invitation isn't necessary. Locked doors don't matter. Neither do fancy security systems. Evil is kind of amazing when you think about it. She knows how to get inside.”
― Gregg Olsen, Envy

“Why you need a reason for everything? Reason is something people say to make sense of things that don't make sense.”
― Gregg Olsen, Envy

“no one can help a troubled person who doesn’t think they need it.”
― Gregg Olsen, If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood

“I loved my mother because I didn’t know I had a choice. I had to love her.”
― Gregg Olsen, If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood

“Her daughter's comment amused Emily. 'I didn't know stalking could be a group activity”
― Gregg Olsen, Heart of Ice

“Trust and stupidity are close friends. Of course, no one really knows that until it’s too late.”
― Gregg Olsen, Lying Next to Me

“From the inside, a violent home looks starkly different than it does to outsiders. Children who grow up with cold, narcissistic, or sadistic parents don’t know that a caretaker with the potential for extreme cruelty is not the norm. Even when they see a contrast in the families of friends, they’ve already been robbed of the ability to challenge parental authority. Instead of seeking help, they hunker down and adapt.”
― Gregg Olsen, If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood

“She’d done exactly what she’d wanted to do. Making people unhappy was her way of having fun.”
― Gregg Olsen, If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood

“Maybe it was more than that. Maybe some things shouldn't be explained.”
― Gregg Olsen, Envy

“You poke at evil with a stick," Valerie had said, offering chilling advice they'd never forget. "Never use your fingers.”
― Gregg Olsen, Envy

“I was free. Free also means nothing.”
― Gregg Olsen, The Sound of Rain

“I'd tell my mother to, you know, go you-know-what herself and I would go help those children. They're in an orphanage and they've got family! That's sickening. What does John do? Nothing. His kids are in an orphanage... and he does nothing.
~ Michelle Jarvis”
― Gregg Olsen, If Loving You is Wrong

“Dying, she thought, is the only way out of what is happening to me.”
― Gregg Olsen, If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood

“Victims of abuse can still love the monster. This ambivalent loyalty might just be the predator’s ultimate form of damage.”
― Gregg Olsen, If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood

“I'm a successful businessman, a very successful bussinessman,' he said, dead-eyed to the camera. 'Guys like me don't kill our wives. We trade 'em in and get a new one”
― Gregg Olsen, Heart of Ice

“No one speaks the truth to anyone anymore. Lies either by omission or purposefully have become our national pastime. Backstabbing is an Olympic sport. Or at least it should be.”
― Gregg Olsen, The Sound of Rain

“But in late March in the Pacific Northwest, a cease-fire on precipitation only meant the clouds were taking a coffee break.”
― Gregg Olsen, The Girl in the Woods

“The ones that test the limits sometimes do the most amazing things in life. That’s what I’ve always thought.”
― Gregg Olsen, Lying Next to Me

“He always told his girl, "If only these walls could talk... the world would know just how hard it is to tell the truth in a story in which everyone's a liar."

But the walls didn't talk.”
― Gregg Olsen, Envy

“leathery tan face and eyes popping from white rings of flesh left by tanning goggles, had his head so far up his ass that he needed a snorkel to breathe. At least most thought so.”
― Gregg Olsen, A Wicked Snow

“Only in the campfire-stoked stories of Boy Scouts, bedtime tales baby-sitters employ to frighten bratty charges, or in the sweet delight of grandpas who never grew up, would the stories live on.”
― Gregg Olsen, Starvation Heights: A True Story of Murder and Malice in the Woods of the Pacific Northwest

“The women laugh a little. I do too. Though I’m only mimicking their laughter. Nothing is funny to me.”
― Gregg Olsen, The Sound of Rain

“She looked at ways to quantify life. Analytic in nature, her head almost always overruled her heart. Love it? Hate it? She wanted to KNOW it.”
― Gregg Olsen, Envy

“Around forty children die every year after they’re forgotten in a car,”
― Gregg Olsen, Fundamental Love

“She was only fifteen! What is the matter with these kids today? Can't they wait to have sex until they get their driver's license and can go somewhere?”
― Gregg Olsen, Envy

“And he'd kill Lily Ann Denton, put her in the trunkm and go to arbys. Godm he was hungry. ”
― Gregg Olsen, Heart of Ice

“No one, certainly no teenager, was normal or felt they were. Everyone wore a kind of mask that kept people from really seeing what - or who - was inside”
― Gregg Olsen, Envy

“she would abuse me, then the very next day hug me or tell me how I was her baby and she loved me blah, blah. I think it worked like any abusive relationship . . . a person feels trapped, nowhere to go . . . they are abused and then the abuser reins them back in with kindness and the person being abused settles, not quite thinking about the next time they are beat etc. just relieved the abuse is over (for now). My mother was a ticking time bomb . . .”
― Gregg Olsen, If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood

“I think as a kid I depended on her, her being my mom, I don’t think I ever thought I had any other options but to live with her. As an adult I kick myself for not doing something to help myself back then. My mother could show affection and say kind words when she wanted to . . . she would abuse me, then the very next day hug me or tell me how I was her baby and she loved me blah, blah. I think it worked like any abusive relationship”
― Gregg Olsen, If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood