Elizabeth Little > Quotes

“Understand that this is how it works with people like me. Self-pity is the sun around which we orbit, the great gravitational force that rules those of us for whom Things Didn’t Quite Turn Out. If we’re lucky, purpose (vengeance, absolution, cookies, not in that order) can keep us from falling in, from burning up, but we’re fooling ourselves if we ever think we’re going to break free. But that’s why God created Xanax.”
― Elizabeth Little, Dear Daughter

“Men make horror films about fantastic creatures and outlandish villains and beautiful victims. Women make horror films about what happens when the wrong guy gets into your car. You ever wonder why that is?” Another flick of his fingers. “That’s a grotesque mischaracterization.” I silently agreed with him. Sometimes women also make horror films about what happens when the wrong guy gets into your house.”
― Elizabeth Little, Pretty as a Picture

“Everyone has some idea about what separates us from every other animal, about what makes us humans so fucking special. God, language, cheese, that sort of thing. But you might not have heard of this one: What makes us different is the fact that we'll voluntarily step into a locked cage with a predator.”
― Elizabeth Little, Dear Daughter

“I turned at a noise from the hallway—but it was just Bones. He was lying on his back, licking his paws. If only men were as easy to handle as dogs. Wait a second—they totally are.”
― Elizabeth Little, Dear Daughter

“Strange, but I actually wished I was hungover. Because when you're so busy thinking about how awful you feel you forget for a moment how awful you are. Because pain can be its own relief. Because throwing up is a super-effective way to stay a size 0.”
― Elizabeth Little, Dear Daughter

“There are three ways to approach secrets, you know. The first is what you find on soap operas and in poorly executed middle-school maneuvers. First, you uncover a piece of incriminating information, and then you use it to force a steady stream of favors or payment or behavior. The problem here is that, if extended indefinitely, the expected cost of compliance eventually outweighs the cost of exposure. Moreover, the probability that you'll lose your monopoly of your information increases with each passing day. Never, ever assume that you're only person digging for dirt, especially in Los Angeles. Vipers are measured by the pitful for a reason.

The second approach is more effective: You make one, single very carefully chosen demand. And you give your mark just one chance. This was my usual MO. If this mark doesn't do as you ask, when you ask, you leak their secret. No excuses. No mercy. Brutal consistency is the key to credibility. Mothers, dog trainers, Israel -- you know what I'm talking about.

But there's also a radical third approach: You reveal that you know the secret...and they you keep it under wraps. Do that, and they're not just going to tell you other secrets, they might even keep yours in return. And they'll think they're doing of their own free will when what you've really done is painstakingly aligned your incentives. That's all trust is, really. Some people are just incentivized by nature.”
― Elizabeth Little, Dear Daughter

“If I'd been free to pick any name in the world, I would have one for something diaphanous and fanciful, like Coralie or Delphine, the kind of name a grand dame gives a petit chien. Because no one - no one - daydreams about pretty names more than girls called Jane. And with good reason, you know? I mean, even our most illustrious Janes are world-class stick-in-the-mud. Austen, Eyre, Doe? Spintser, sucker, corpse. It's a wonder I managed as well as I did.”
― Elizabeth Little, Dear Daughter

“Do you ever think about it? About nothingness. I do, I think about it all the time. Because of course it’s nothingness that awaits us. Of course it is. If it weren’t why would our hearts keep pumping any longer than they had to? Why wouldn’t we all emerge into the world pure and innocent, and then before we had a chance to get in any trouble, before we had a chance to take our first oily shit, just immediately shut down our systems and head straight to the hereafter? If there were a better life after death, why bother getting fitter for survival’s sake? Why would evolution even be a thing? Why fight for something second best? If death was really awesome, in a life or death situation, our bodies wouldn’t muscle up with epinephrine and cortisol. Our brains would hit us up instead with sloppy, sleepy happy love. Hannibal Lecter would be our Mickey Mouse. No, there’s fuckall to look forward to. Our bodies understand this. The real problem is, it’s unbearable to know this. So we cope.”
― Elizabeth Little

“Multi-tools are like insults, girls — you should always have one on hand.”
― Elizabeth Little, Dear Daughter

“Everyone loved this girl, right?” I reach for the bag of bread. “They always do, once they’re dead.”
― Elizabeth Little, Pretty as a Picture

“Give me a movie and I’ll find the meaning; I’ll find the truth; I’ll find the story. Sometimes, if I’m very lucky, I’ll find all three.”
― Elizabeth Little, Pretty as a Picture

“(Thank god for my Swiss Army Knife. Multi-tools are like insults, girls—you should always have one on hand.)”
― Elizabeth Little, Dear Daughter

“Your inability to forgive has always been your most ironic character trait.”
― elizabeth little, Dear Daughter

“Mutli-tools are like insults, girls - you should always have one on hand.”
― Elizabeth Little

“God, I love the waltz, the way the elegance of the one-count draws your attention away from the restlessness of the two-three.”
― Elizabeth Little

“If the mark doesn’t do as you ask, when you ask, you leak their secret. No excuses. No mercy. Brutal consistency is the key to credibility. Mothers, dog trainers, Israel—you know what I’m talking about.”
― Elizabeth Little, Dear Daughter

“You can get away with anything if you wear great clothes, throw great parties, and give money to kids with cleft palates.”
― Elizabeth Little, Dear Daughter: A Novel

“I never understand it when parents talk about sending their kids to school to “socialize” them. Children aren’t people. They’re barely even animals. They’re just suppurating wounds of emotion inflamed by too much positive reinforcement. You can’t be socialized by the unsocializable. That’s like asking King Kong to teach tap dance.”
― Elizabeth Little, Dear Daughter

“And I’d be damned if I let the first photograph of me in ten years be taken on fucking Amtrak. I mean, the light alone.”
― Elizabeth Little

“gone.”
― Elizabeth Little, Dear Daughter

“maybe because you finally realized you wrote a terrible script—so you decided to try to frame Billy for Liza’s murder. Send him to jail that way.”
― Elizabeth Little, Pretty as a Picture

“Like she always said, "You can get away with anything if you wear great clothes, throw great parties, and give money to kids with cleft palates.”
― Elizabeth Little, Dear Daughter

“Of all the challenges of incarceration, this was perhaps the worst: I was a fundamentally rational creature reduced to rudimentary divination.”
― Elizabeth Little, Dear Daughter

“Like I’m Uma Thurman in Kill Bill, lying barefoot in the back of that truck, gritting my teeth and trying to force my insubordinate body to bend to my iron will.”
― Elizabeth Little, Pretty as a Picture

“After nearly fifteen years here, though, celebrities are just part of the scenery, another thing to not notice on the drive home, and I don’t know what I hate more about my indifferent attitude, the cynicism or the way it sidles right up next to Hollywood cliché.”
― Elizabeth Little, Pretty as a Picture

“I press my ring fingers into the corners of my eyes and try, once again, to figure myself out.”
― Elizabeth Little, Pretty as a Picture

“Sometimes I think everything wrong with my life can be located in the space between what I should have said and what actually came out of my mouth.”
― Elizabeth Little, Pretty as a Picture

“Did you know that the more you remember, the more you expand your perception of personal time? No, really. There's like studies and shit. Even though we can't outrun death, if we muscle up our memories the race, at least, will seem a little longer. That is, we'll still die, but we'll have lived more. Kind of comforting right?”
― Elizabeth Little, Dear Daughter

“Self-pity is the sun around which we orbit, the great gravitational force that rules those of use for whom Things Didn't Quite Turn Out.”
― Elizabeth Little, Dear Daughter

“There are no limits to what he’ll do to get the performance he wants. And for this film, what he wanted was fear—it’s a favorite of his, really. I’m sure he told Liza he would never put her in any real physical danger.”
― Elizabeth Little, Pretty as a Picture