L.T. Vargus > Quotes

“If you take the meaning out of the world, all that’s left is controlling each other.”
― L.T. Vargus, Casting Shadows Everywhere

“Out of all of the trillions of years of the Earth’s history, you might be alive for one 70 or 80 year period. That ain’t so long. You should be out ready to burn this motherfucker to the groun’ while you can. But they somehow get you all scared and hung up on these stupid ideas.”
― L.T. Vargus, Casting Shadows Everywhere

“I look for meaning even though I know I won’t really find it.”
― L.T. Vargus, Casting Shadows Everywhere

“Can you imagine strangling someone for 10 minutes?”
― L.T. Vargus, Casting Shadows Everywhere

“See, I saw someone get strangled once when I was 9.”
― L.T. Vargus, Casting Shadows Everywhere

“Everybody wants to feel special and loved. But you sort of need to feel like you’ve earned it.”
― L.T. Vargus, Casting Shadows Everywhere

“stilettos,”
― L.T. Vargus, The Girl in the Sand

“Kind of, but it’s more than that. It’s like a lot of shit you’ve been told in your life is a lie. All these rules and all these things you worry about... they ain’t got real meanin’ on their own. The only meanin’ they got is what we give ’em, you know?”
― L.T. Vargus, Casting Shadows Everywhere

“We all have heard a bunch of times that drinking kills brain cells, right? Right. Well, what I didn’t know was that the actual sensation of brain cells being damaged is what being drunk is. So basically people are killing their brain cause it feels good. Weird, right?”
― L.T. Vargus, Casting Shadows Everywhere

“The ability to create life, to produce a fully formed human being — a body and a soul — that was the real magic of the universe. It made every woman a potential Goddess.”
― L.T. Vargus, The Girl in the Sand

“But nobody’s perfect. So it makes you feel like... like they don’t know you at all, and they never could. They just like this imaginary perfect girl in their head, you know? And if they did figure out what you were really like, then maybe they wouldn’t like it so much. So even though someone thinking you’re perfect may sound good, it’s not.”
― L.T. Vargus, Casting Shadows Everywhere

“So I will dive head first into something new. I will sit on my hands no longer. I will reach out, grab the world by the shoulders, wrestle it to the goddamn ground, and I will do... something. I will do something. I will do anything. Cause take it from me: Anything is better than nothing. Nothing is a bottomless black hole of bad times, dude. It’s weird. I had my doubts, but I am excited now. It feels like anything is possible. It feels like there’s a reason to get up in the morning. It feels like I’m finally awake after sleepwalking for so long.”
― L.T. Vargus, Casting Shadows Everywhere

“energy. Just consciousness. Here on the physical plane, we all have our little shard of the great soul in our skulls. That’s the divine spark that makes us all who we are, you know? But the pieces can feel that they’re apart from the whole, that they’re sealed off from everyone by a layer of flesh and bone. We can feel that something in our lives is missing. That we are somehow incomplete. And that creates the tension in us that drives us to endless conflict.”
― L.T. Vargus, Dead End Girl

“Maybe instead of being the exception to the rule, what Heaven’s Gate really proves is that different techniques work on different people,” Darger said. “Co-opting an existing group works for a guy like Ham or Jim Jones, because they’re kind of preaching to the choir, so to speak. They’ve already got a group of believers. On the other hand, there are plenty of people out there still searching for something. Something to believe in. A place where they belong. And the Heaven’s Gate types can speak to this big secret no one wants you to know. I think that would be very appealing to someone who’s maybe drifting a little. Here’s someone telling you, ‘Oh yes. There’s more. And it’s not what everyone else thinks it is. You can be one of the chosen that gets to know the truth.’” “Pretty much,” Loshak said. “It’s the next part that makes less sense to me.” Darger rested her skull against the headrest. “When the followers have to prove that they’re worthy by renouncing all worldly possessions and agreeing to do everything their leader says. I mean, it makes sense to me in theory. I’ve seen people blindly follow something or someone enough times to know it happens. But on a personal level, I don’t understand it at all. When someone tells me what to do, no matter what it is, there’s a part of me that always thinks, ‘Fuck you, now I want to do the exact opposite.”
― L.T. Vargus, Dark Passage

“It’s like this weird oversimplified order that our left brain tries to impose upon everything. It can’t comprehend the unknown. It hates the idea of not knowing what will happen next. It won’t acknowledge that there is a randomness – a chaos”
― L.T. Vargus, Casting Shadows Everywhere

“awkwardly in her lap. Her fingers twitched involuntarily, and it occurred to her that she should pretend she was still out. Where”
― L.T. Vargus, Dead End Girl

“Every day is a chance to get better and better and better at whatever you want to do. Or whoever you want to be, I guess.”
― L.T. Vargus, Casting Shadows Everywhere

“That’s right,” Luck agreed. “We don’t need any John Wayne’s here.” He pointed at Detective Porto, who sat toward the back. “Aside from our own John Wayne Porto, of course.”
― L.T. Vargus, Dead End Girl

“Lately, she’d begun to question her decision to leave her position as a victim specialist. Violet Darger had spent her first four years at the FBI in the Office for Victim Assistance before giving up her position to become an agent trainee. She knew her colleagues thought she was nuts for making the move. Victim specialist jobs were highly competitive. To give that up… to start over at the bottom of the special agent chain was something almost everyone had counseled against. Not that she’d asked for their advice. “Impulsive” was the word her former supervisor had used. That was almost two years ago now, and she’d brushed them off at the time. They didn’t understand. She didn’t expect them to.”
― L.T. Vargus, Dead End Girl

“did. Both your cell and the room number. You didn’t answer.” She glanced over his shoulder and took in the room quickly. “Your phone is off the hook.” “Well, yeah… I find it rings less that way.”
― L.T. Vargus, Dead End Girl

“Angeles”
― L.T. Vargus, Dead End Girl

“table”
― L.T. Vargus, Night on Fire

“Sorry. I was thinking about my pets. Two cats and a dog. Haven’t seen them for weeks now. This whole thing reminds me of them, I guess. My cats are all over me when I’m the only human around. Jumping up on the couch to get pet. Screeching at me to get fed. So on. But if anyone else comes over — a stranger, I mean — they run and hide under the bed for hours. “The dog is just the opposite. He charges to the door to confront any would-be intruder on his turf. He smells the guest, looks them straight in the eye, sizes up the situation face to face and only then will he calm down. “It’s two different ways of looking at the world, you know? A cat sees individuals above all else. Almost like an artist’s point of view, I think. She sees everything through the lens of individuals and relationships. If something disrupts that intricate web of connections — such as a stranger’s presence — she’ll disengage and keep to herself a while. “A dog sees territory to control. He’s cognizant of individuals, but his primary concern is controlling his environment in a direct, assertive way. He wants to feel in control. If you cross that threshold into his territory, you will be dealt with. Even if that only means you’ll be barked at a few times.”
― L.T. Vargus, Dead End Girl

“There’s a collective script for that situation that we can follow. But losing a kid, there’s no social mechanism for dealing with that. Nothing to prepare you for it, to help you cope. There’s not even a word for it in the English language. The child who survives is an orphan, like I said, but the parent who survives? Well, there’s nothing for that.”
― L.T. Vargus, Beyond Good & Evil

“And then breast implants are even more so. At that point the woman is going under the knife not only to obey men but to actually debase herself in a certain way solely to be sexually attractive to men, you know? It’s no longer in any way a health issue or a grooming issue or anything like that. It’s getting huge sex balloon things attached to your body. Willingly making yourself a toy for men. Humiliating yourself, and in a way some men like that.”
― L.T. Vargus, Casting Shadows Everywhere

“The neighborhood reduced the risk, Levi felt, of anyone else in the vicinity packing a weapon. In the inner city, he'd probably run into some gang banger. Out in the sticks, it would be some NRA freak's dream come true to put him down. But here in the middle ground, in the suburbs, it was all sheep and no wolves. Or so it seemed.”
― L.T. Vargus, Killing Season

“through”
― L.T. Vargus, Desert Heat

“the”
― L.T. Vargus, Celebrity Skin

“The other bridesmaids cooed with joy when they stood to admire themselves in the mirror earlier that day. When Darger saw her reflection, all she could think was: Ice Capades.”
― L.T. Vargus, Killing Season

“It was tempting to stop, to dive headfirst into a cinnamon roll the size of a bowling ball, but she wanted to get her bags and meet up with Loshak as soon as possible.”
― L.T. Vargus, Killing Season