Victoria > Victoria's Quotes

“No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.”
― Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House

“Milicent Patrick’s final resting place is in every single Creature from the Black Lagoon T-shirt, every Metaluna Mutant toy, every VHS tape of Fantasia, every DVD of The Shape of Water.
It’s on the desk of every female animator and in the pen of every woman doodling a monster in the margins of her notebook. It’s always been there. It’s just been hidden, purposely obfuscated.
Now, it’s in every copy of this book, i your hands or on your ears.”
― Mallory O’Meara, The Lady from the Black Lagoon: Hollywood Monsters and the Lost Legacy of Milicent Patrick

“You ladies read a strange assortment of books," James Harris said. "We're a strange assortment of broads," Kitty replied.”
― Grady Hendrix, The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires

“It really confirmed for me that inside everyone lurks a Sherlock Holmes that believes that given the right amount of clues they could solve a mystery. If the challenge here, or perceived weakness, is that the unsolved aspect will leave readers unfulfilled, why not turn that on its head and use it as a strength?”
― Michelle McNamara, I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer

“Be brave,’ she says. ‘Be bold. Be loud. Never change for anyone but yourself. Any soul worth their star-stuff will take the whole package as is and however it grows. Don’t waste your time on anyone who doesn’t believe you when you tell them how you feel.”
― Erin Morgenstern, The Starless Sea

“Blink and you’re twenty-eight, and everyone else is now a mile down the road, and you’re still trying to find it, and the irony is hardly lost on you that in wanting to live, to learn, to find yourself, you’ve gotten lost.”
― V.E. Schwab, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

“...she was trapped between competing desires, a desire for a more meaningful connection and the desire to never change. She wished for eternal youth and endless merriment.”
― Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Mexican Gothic

“She was the snake biting its tail. She was a dreamer, eternally bound to a nightmare, eyes closed even when her eyes had turned to dust.”
― Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Mexican Gothic

“Don't you feel it, sometimes? As if the world wants to consume itself.”
― Jennifer Giesbrecht, The Monster of Elendhaven

“It is good to renew one's wonder, said the philosopher. Space travel has again made children of us all.”
― Ray Bradbury, The Martian Chronicles

“I'm being ironic. Don't interrupt a man in the midst of being ironic, it's not polite. There!”
― Ray Bradbury, The Martian Chronicles

“The Darkling slumped back in his chair. “Fine,” he said with a weary shrug. “Make me your villain.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Shadow and Bone

“Still, I have to admit I didn’t see the chicken or the puppet coming.”
― T. Kingfisher, Nettle & Bone

“I want to kiss you,” Nikolai said. “But I won’t. Not until you’re thinking of me instead of trying to forget him.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Siege and Storm

“God! Whose hand was I holding?”
― Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House

“Many of them, like him, would never grow old enough to understand that you only go from one hardship to another. And that the best we can hope from life is that it is a wonderful depression.”
― Heather O'Neill, The Lonely Hearts Hotel

“What city doesn’t like to brag about itself? The gargoyle fauns leaned off the front of the buildings, whispering about their sex lives. The fat catfish in the greenhouse swore they had stock market tips. The horses on the carousel reared their heads, ready for a battle against the mermaid statues in the pond. An electric train rode around and around a tiny mountain in the toy-shop window, while its Lilliputian passengers dreamed in tiny berths.”
― Heather O'Neill, The Lonely Hearts Hotel

“You will one day experience joy that matches this pain. You will cry euphoric tears at the Beach Boys, you will stare down at a baby’s face as she lies asleep in your lap, you will make great friends, you will eat delicious foods you haven’t tried yet, you will be able to look at a view from a high place and not assess the likelihood of dying from falling. There are books you haven’t read yet that will enrich you, films you will watch while eating extra-large buckets of popcorn, and you will dance and laugh and have sex and go for runs by the river and have late-night conversations and laugh until it hurts. Life is waiting for you. You might be stuck here for a while, but the world isn’t going anywhere. Hang on in there if you can. Life is always worth it.”
― Matt Haig, Reasons to Stay Alive

“You’re overthinking it.’ ‘I have anxiety. I have no other type of thinking available.”
― Matt Haig, The Midnight Library

“Every day the average person will witness six miracles. But it isn’t that we don’t believe in miracles—we just don’t believe that miracles are miracles. There are so many miracles all around us.”
― Heather O'Neill, The Lonely Hearts Hotel

“Why do you pretend what we do is nothing?” she asked. “Every day, all the chaos and messiness of life happens and every day we clean it all up. Without us, they would just wallow in filth and disorder and nothing of any consequence would ever get done. Who taught you to sneer at that? I’ll tell you who. Someone who took their mother for granted.”
― Grady Hendrix, The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires

“You are not made out of needs, you are made out of your dreams and desires.”
― Brom, Slewfoot: A Tale of Bewitchery

“We all have our own scars. Let them be a blessing and not a curse.”
― Cassandra Peterson, Yours Cruelly, Elvira: Memoirs of the Mistress of the Dark

“Once again, it was as if when every other girl was born, a nurse had handed their parents a handbook with instructions on how to be a girl, but the day I was born, the copy machine at the hospital was broken and the nurse had just looked at me and told my parents, Well, she’ll just have to figure it out. I’m sure she’ll be fine.”
― Doree Shafrir, Thanks for Waiting: The Joy (& Weirdness) of Being a Late Bloomer

“Women are the most important part of horror because, by and large, women are the ones the horror happens to. Women have to endure it, fight it, survive it—in the movies and in real life. They are at risk of attack from real-life monsters. In America, a woman is assaulted every nine seconds.”
― Mallory O'Meara, The Lady from the Black Lagoon: Hollywood Monsters and the Lost Legacy of Milicent Patrick

“Little Natalie, never rest until you have uncovered your essential self. Remember that. Somewhere, deep inside you, hidden by all sorts of fears and worries and petty little thoughts, is a clean pure being made of radiant colours.”
― Shirley Jackson, Hangsaman

“Millicent was holding a door open for me I never realized I had considered closed”
― Mallory O'Meara, The Lady from the Black Lagoon: Hollywood Monsters and the Lost Legacy of Milicent Patrick

“Well, he’s a dog. They don’t have an idea how the world’s supposed to be, so it doesn’t bother them when it isn’t.” Agnes frowned. “Except herding dogs, I think. They have a pretty clear idea in their heads, so they’re always nipping and worrying and trying to get it to fit.”
― T. Kingfisher, Nettle & Bone

“There's many a man who'll not think twice to mistreat a woman but who lives in fear of a habit and a holy symbol.”
― T. Kingfisher, Nettle & Bone

“Evil magic could flow through her like a river in full flood. Fortunately for the rest of us, there’s a lot of Agnes in the way.”
― T. Kingfisher, Nettle & Bone