Taylor Stevens > Quotes

“But people like the doll guy who sells women and the dog guy who buys women, and other guys who, say, rape women, or maybe don’t go as far as violent rape but treat women like objects instead of people—sure, there’s a difference in the level of crime, but it’s all the same thing, where women become a canvas for throwing emotional baggage, Jackson Pollock style.”
― Taylor Stevens, The Doll

“Lumani had never managed a failed delivery because, in the end, no matter how skilled or how hard they fought back, pressure applied in the right places caused even the strongest men to fracture.
But this one? He'd watched her. Studied her. Observed what maybe even Uncle, the reader of people, had missed. This one was already fractured, and the lines between her broken pieces were not fissures but scar material stronger than whatever had once filled those spaces.”
― Taylor Stevens, The Doll

“The pain on the inside is what keeps you human,' she said. 'Never forget that.”
― Taylor Stevens, The Doll

“This doll-guy situation is an extreme of what I deal with in everyday life, where men believe that what they want I want, and they project that on to me and then blame me, curse me, when I don’t respond the way they’ve fantasized, like it’s some personal attack on them, like they’re entitled to something. Doll guy and dog guy and rape guy, the dangerous ones, they just go a step further and take it anyway. Then they blame you and the way you look for what they did. What’s worse is that a lot of the time, society blames you, too.”
― Taylor Stevens, The Doll

“The aloneness. The invisible walls. Always the outsider looking in. Different. Unusual. I despise their world and the superficiality of it all and yet still want to be a part of it. I wonder sometimes how much simpler a life of naïveté and unawareness would be. I have on occasion found people I could trust with who I really am, and when that happens, I walk away....

It’s safer that way-- for them, for me. It’s far easier to bear personal pain than the responsibility of someone else’s. I feel safe around people as tough as I am, but they don’t come along that often.”
― Taylor Stevens, The Informationist

“Duct tape. Perfect weapon; so many uses.”
― Taylor Stevens

“Why are you dressed as a man?" Neeva said. "Why do you act like..." She paused. "Why do you act like... like one of them?" Her voice rose, challenging and accusatory. "Them," she said again. "Where women aren't human, aren't people, just things--objects. Them." She jabbed a thumb toward the rear window, where surely one of the Doll Maker's men followed unseen. "Oh, they'll show you a real man. They'll turn you into a real woman. They'll fuck you hard, you'll want it, but what you want never actually matters because everything is about their own ego. Them." Neeva stopped for air; a long, greedy inhale. "Why?" she said. "Why would you--a woman"--she spat out the word--"you who should know what it feels like to be called a cunt and a bitch and a whore just because you voiced an opinion, to be told you're fat or ugly as a way to make your argument worthless, that you're stuck-up, repressed, and in denial of your true feelings when you find them repulsive. Why would you be one of them? What's wrong with you?”
― Taylor Stevens, The Doll

“There’s no such thing as truth, that’s what I learned,” she said. “Only opinions people want you to believe as truth.”
― Taylor Stevens, The Doll

“Do you have any idea what the typical response is whenever I do give someone a glimpse of my life?"
Gideon paused, as if he waited for her to answer.

And Monroe hesitated. Yes. She did know. She knew because it was the same response she would get it she chose to let down her own guard. Hell, it was practically the same response Miles had given the night she had told him the unadulterated truth of her past. She shook her head again.

"Standard response," he said. "I swear to God. First thing out of their mouth's is: 'Wow. It's shocking you're so normal.' What the fuck? Do I have to be damaged for my past to make sense? And what the hell is normal anyway? And does white bread America have dibs on it?"
Gideon stopped talking, crossed his arms, and the look on his face said he regretted saying as much as he had.”
― Taylor Stevens, The Innocent

“Can't you just let it go? Move on?"

His face darkened. His eyes glared in response and he was silent a long time while his jaw worked over a toothpick. She'd used the same line that the prophet and his representatives had been using for years. Even if these things did happen, there is no point in being bitter. You should forgive and forget and let bygones be bygones.
Kind of galling, considering the insistence upon forgiveness was being made by the people who had done the hurting and done nothing to make up for it. But then, that was the standard 'blame the victim' abuser mentally, and to be expected.

Gideon seemed to work through this slap in the face and let it slide.
He said, "For a while I thought maybe, you know, if I could talk to the people responsible. If I could show them how difficult life has been because of them, that maybe they would care. I don't know. I thought maybe if they apologized, it would be so much easier to forget this shit. You know? To do what they say and 'let it go'. But nobody will take any personal responsibility. My own parents have nothing to offer but a bunch of whiny excuses. They try to convince me that my life wasn't as bad as I remember it."
"Fuck that," he said, "They weren't even there. They don't even know what went on with me. I just..."
He paused and pulled his fingers through his hair.
"Christ," he said. He paused again, eyes to the sky, and then back to her.
"Even the people who never personally raised a hand against me still propped up the regime that made it happen. They stood by and allowed it. Played a part. All of them. Every single one was a participant. Either directly or by looking away. Institutionally, doctrinally, they abused us. Sent us into the streets to beg, denied us an education, had us beaten, starved, exorcised, and separated from our parents. They broke up our families, gave our bodies to perverts, and stole our future. And then they turn around and say we're supposed to just forget it happened and move on from it. If instead we bring up the past, then they'll call us liars. Say we're exaggerating or making it up completely. Why the hell would be make any of this shit up? What's the point in that? To make our lives seem worse than they were? Not that I would, but do you have any idea how much exaggeration it would take for the average person to even begin to grasp how fucking miserable it was? And then, if they ever do admit to any of it, they say that 'mistakes were made'. "
"Mistakes." he said. He was leaning forward again, punctuating the air with his finger.
"Michael, they commit crimes against children. You know, those things people in society go to jail for when they're caught. And then to the public they do what they always do. Deny. Deny. Deny. And we're left more raped than ever. Victimized first by what they did, and again by their refusal to admit that it happened. They paint us as bitter apostates and liars to a world that not only doesn't give a shit, but also couldn't possibly understand even if it did."

"I do," Munroe said. And Gideon stopped.”
― Taylor Stevens, The Innocent

“Do not let her hear your language, the source had said, she will use language as a weapon. Keep the area around her free of objects, everything will be used as a weapon. Stay clear of her reach, she doesn’t need a weapon to kill you. Don’t use restraints, she will find a way out of them, and they will only give a false sense of safety. Do not touch her, the source said. Leave her in peace, and treat her respectfully, only then will the violence stay muted. Disrespect these and make no mistake, she will kill you.”
― Taylor Stevens

“She felt invisible shackles snaking around her wrists and ankles, took a deep breath and said..............”
― Taylor Stevens, The Informationist

“Bradford paused and his expression shadowed. He pulled her back and held her tight. Whispered, “Don’t say it, okay? I know what’s coming and I don’t want to hear it. Not tonight. Tomorrow maybe, but not tonight.”
He wasn’t talking about Kate Breeden. They both knew that Munroe could only bear so much pain and loss before coming completely undone. She needed time away, time to heal, and she could only do that by returning to who she was: the lone operative, shut down and shut off.
Munroe set the glass on an end table, wrapped her arms around his neck, and kissed him. She truly loved him; always would. She smiled and fought back the sadness, glad in a way that she was spared from having to say good-bye, from uttering the words she never wanted to speak—although, in truth, there would never really be a good-bye, because if this was where home was, then like a homing pigeon she’d return, and Bradford had to know it, just as he also knew her reasons for leaving.”
― Taylor Stevens

“She hovered above the mental abyss, kept from falling by force of will. Shut out the world by descending into darkness, the closest she could get to putting herself into suspended animation while she waited for time to pass, waited to take matters into her own hands and either through her own death or someone else’s put an end to this misery forever.”
― Taylor Stevens, The Doll

“Vanessa Michael Munroe was a killer with a predator’s natural instincts; she could take care of herself. What scared him—terrified him—was what would happen if she was pushed too far. He’d seen that place of destruction, had witnessed firsthand what the darkness could do to her mind, and if whoever had taken her had also taken Logan …”
― Taylor Stevens

“With a boot on his chest, she used her free hand to search for the syringe he surely carried. Found it. Jabbed it into his thigh. Waited with the gun to his head until his eyes shut and his jaw went slack. Punched him just to be sure. The sedative would have been measured to heavily dose Neeva and her nearly half-weight to his, but at this point, what the fuck ever.
A group of pedestrians on the other side of the street had watched the entire scene. Munroe waved them on. “It’s official business,” she said, and whether they believed her or not, they moved on. Human nature was always more inclined to apathy, to avoiding
involvement, to seeing things as someone else’s problem. People were easy like that.”
― Taylor Stevens

“Revenge is best left to fantasy,” Munroe said. “It feels better there. In real life you can eventually learn to deal with the pain and trauma, learn to cope on some level, you know? But you can never undo death, and even if you think they deserve it, killing doesn’t take away your pain, just puts you on dangerous ground that can collapse out from beneath you at any time.”
― Taylor Stevens

“sometimes the only way to feel better, when forgetting didn’t work, was to talk to someone who knew how bad the thing could be.”
― Taylor Stevens, The Innocent

“It was better to know something bad than nothing at all,”
― Taylor Stevens, The Innocent

“Slumped to the floor. The pit of blackness welcomed her to let go and fall into the murky depths where conscience and pain ceased to exist.
Hands to her head, face to the stone, screaming without sound, she pushed back hard.
For nine months she’d tasted happiness, a chance at the closest thing she’d known to peace and a real life. For nine months the rage and violence that had defined so many of her years had finally ebbed, and now those who had no right had come with impunity to rip her out of this newfound calm, throwing her into an impossible situation where no matter what she did or what she chose, the end result would be a return to madness.”
― Taylor Stevens

“One foot in front of the other, more aimless than direct, Bradford left the waiting room for the outside world. Called for a taxi and then dialed Munroe again, desperate for her voice, for one ray of light in the darkness, afraid of what he might say if she did answer, afraid of himself and the inner deadening that pointed to a danger far more lethal than any rage he'd felt.”
― Taylor Stevens, The Doll

“Arben was large. Strong. Armed. And these, his strengths, were his greatest weaknesses.
Brute force and the ability to control others through fear and intimidation made men lazy. Overconfident. Slow.
She would never be as fast as a bullet, but in close contact, would always be faster than the hand that drew the gun. Speed was life. Speed was survival. Speed born from the will to live, from the necessity of staying one move ahead, speed carved into her psyche one sadistic knife slice after another. That which hadn’t killed her had made her faster.”
― Taylor Stevens

“Clothing, hair, shoes, accessories: these were props, visual cues, that people used to filter information and make instant assessments out of random connections, to categorize and assign value to those who populated their world. And layered beneath the props for sight came those for smell, and hearing, and more, that sense of intangibility that allowed people to read nuance and body language and interpret what the other senses didn’t grasp directly; cues that together formed a picture that matched perceptions based on expectations and that, when adjusted one way or the other, filtered past the gatekeepers of the mind, allowing Munroe to become whatever she needed to be.”
― Taylor Stevens

“Like a modern-day Apostle Paul, she was made all things to all men. She was everyone and no one. She would find him, kill him, and he would never see her coming.”
― Taylor Stevens, The Vessel

“Munroe stared at the sky. Cursed her weakness, her inability to block out what it would mean to knowingly deliver the innocent into the same hell that had birthed her to life. In this moment of decision she condemned to death the one she would risk anything to save. To the night, Munroe whispered good-bye. Opened the floodgates to Gehenna—that place of the wicked, that place of the dead—and here in this deserted spot, she buried her soul.”
― Taylor Stevens

“And like the randomness of life’s chaos, the decision to let him live was a coin toss. Just as she currently fought to get out from under the weight of her decision to allow Kate Breeden to live, so she might also one day again find herself in Lumani’s crosshairs.
All she could do was walk the narrow line between instinct and conscience and hope for the best.”
― Taylor Stevens

“This was home: running along a razor's edge of self-induced terror, calculating mortality against probability.
Assignments were the reprieve. When she was abroad, although she would do whatever was necessary to get the job done, there was a degree of normalcy, sanity, purpose, and the destructive forces propelling her to gamble with her life were dormant.”
― Taylor Stevens

“Subterfuge as a woman was always more complicated than subterfuge as a man; the guise of femininity required further insight, required understanding of the cultural context in which the costume would be viewed.

For a man, changes in accoutrements and clothing created changes in status perception, but, no matter the culture, a man was a man. A woman, on the other hand, was never JUST a woman.

A woman was an object, a canvas, upon which society and culture painted labels and framed unspoken expectations, a collectively owned piece upon which shame, scorn, and punishment should be heaped if she failed to confirm to the prescribed design. Even in the most forward-thinking countries, subconscious collusion and tacit social agreement put the value of the opinions and contributions of women at less than those of a full person - somewhere between child and adult. Subterfuge as a woman was always more complicated because a man in a suit was a man in a suit, but a woman in a dress with a hemline two inches too short was a slut, and, in the wrong part of town, a whore, and, in the wrong country, a corpse not quite yet dead.”
― Taylor Stevens, The Catch

“If he touches me, I’ll kill him.”
Rattle on a snake, a dog’s growl to prevent a bite, her warning was meant to avoid unnecessary bloodshed and the burden of taking life, because as surely as the earth turned, if that man put a hand on her, instinct and history would overwhelm reason and she would destroy him or die trying.”
― Taylor Stevens

“Even the worst of men was someone else’s brother, child, parent, lover.”
― Taylor Stevens, The Vessel