Kate Alice Marshall > Quotes

“Sometimes it seemed like the only thing I’d ever been good at was surviving being broken. I didn’t know how to be whole. So any time I felt like I was healing, I found a way to break myself again.”
― Kate Alice Marshall, What Lies in the Woods

“There is a wilderness in little girls. We could not contain it. It made magic of the rain and a temple of the forest.”
― Kate Alice Marshall, What Lies in the Woods

“What do you wear when you go to meet a ghost?”
― Kate Alice Marshall, Rules for Vanishing

“To survive you need to learn to hold contradictory things in your head at the same time. I am going to die; I am going to live. There is nothing to fear; be wary of everything.”
― Kate Alice Marshall, I Am Still Alive

“That’s the thing about trust, isn’t it?” Ethan said. “You gather all the evidence you can, use your brain, weigh character and past actions. But the final inch of it—that’s faith. Trust means believing in someone. It’s not just a conclusion. It’s a choice.”
― Kate Alice Marshall, What Lies in the Woods

“If they'd known the truth about Persephone, they would have thought we were strange, wicked little beasts — and we were. What little girl isn't?”
― Kate Alice Marshall, What Lies in the Woods

“Little Lucy, dressed in white
Gave her mother such a fright
Walked into the woods one day
Where she went no one can say
Down a road that no one found
Or are her bones sunk in the ground?
How many steps did Lucy take?
One, two, there, four...”
― Kate Alice Marshall, Rules for Vanishing

“There is a wilderness in little girls. We could not contain it. It made magic of the rain and a temple of the forest. We raced down narrow trails, hair flying wind-wild behind us, and pretended that the slender spruce and hemlock were still the ancient woods that industry had chewed down to splinters. We made ourselves into warriors, into queens, into goddesses.”
― Kate Alice Marshall, What Lies in the Woods

“What happened in the dark?”
― Kate Alice Marshall, Rules for Vanishing

“The flesh does not acknowledge linear time, a therapist had once told me. The past is written alongside the present on our skins.”
― Kate Alice Marshall, What Lies in the Woods

“Do you want to know where Lucy went?
She went to play the game.
You can play, too.
Find a partner.
Find a key.
Find the road.
You have two days.”
― Kate Alice Marshall, Rules for Vanishing

“We knew the world was cruel and dirty and dull, and it was all so brutally unfair that we refused to accept it. There was magic in the world. We only had to find it.”
― Kate Alice Marshall, What Lies in the Woods

“They thought she was bossy, a term that mysteriously only ever seem to be applied to girls.”
― Kate Alice Marshall, What Lies in the Woods

“I cannot tell if I am lying.”
― Kate Alice Marshall, Rules for Vanishing

“They told the story again and again, until they thought they owned it. We tried to forget. We didn’t tell the story. Not the real one. Not ever.”
― Kate Alice Marshall, What Lies in the Woods

“Nothing good comes from digging up old trouble.”
― Kate Alice Marshall, What Lies in the Woods

“Angry people do unpredictable things.”
― Kate Alice Marshall, A Killing Cold

“pain balanced by pain.”
― Kate Alice Marshall, What Lies in the Woods

“I’ve spent hours paging through that notebook again and again, but no secrets have unlocked themselves for me. I’ve gone to the place in the forest where Lucy Callow disappeared, in daylight and in the dark, on the full moon, in a white dress, whatever any legend says. Because I don’t believe in ghosts, but I want to. I know Becca didn’t run away. That leaves one possibility and one impossibility, and I long for the impossible. Because if she isn’t dead, if she’s only been taken, she can be brought back.”
― Kate Alice Marshall, Rules For Vanishing

“We all have violence inside of us. It needs only the right fuel.”
― Kate Alice Marshall, A Killing Cold

“That’s the thing about trust, isn’t it?… You gather all the evidence you can, use your brain, weigh character and past actions. But the final inch of it – that’s faith. Trust means believing in someone. It’s not just a conclusion. It’s a choice.”
― Kate Alice Marshall, What Lies in the Woods

“Of course I believe,” I whispered to the dark, but there was no one to answer.”
― Kate Alice Marshall, What Lies in the Woods

“You couldn’t let someone in without it breaking you, but you could choose the way you broke.”
― Kate Alice Marshall, What Lies in the Woods

“I’d known from the start that he’d sought me out because my sad story was written on my face and he was hoping to borrow it.”
― Kate Alice Marshall, What Lies in the Woods

“Beneath a canopy of moss-wreathed branches, we joined hands and pledged ourselves to one another forever - a kind of forever that burns only in the hearts of those young enough not to know better.”
― Kate Alice Marshall, What Lies in the Woods

“We tried to forget. We didn’t tell the story. Not the real one. Not ever.”
― Kate Alice Marshall, What Lies in the Woods

“So that’s new and weird and I’m so not going to get into it.”
― Kate Alice Marshall, Rules For Vanishing

“We aren't safe at all.”
― Kate Alice Marshall, Rules for Vanishing

“He smelled like soap and responsible choices.”
― Kate Alice Marshall, What Lies in the Woods

“Why did people always say it that way? The other murders. They weren’t the other murders, because I hadn’t been murdered. They were just “the murders.” It made me wonder if I’d died and no one had had the heart to tell me.”
― Kate Alice Marshall, What Lies in the Woods