We Are All Guilty Here (North Falls, #1)

by Karin Slaughter

Never to suffer would never to have been blessed.’” Emmy gave her a blank look. “Edgar Allan Poe,”

“Aunt Millie,” Emmy tried to redirect her, “it’s not a bunch of crows. It’s a murder of crows.” “No,” Myrna chimed in. “It can’t be murder without probable caws.”

“Every kid gets a different set of parents, even if they grow up in the same house.”

“When Emmy was little, we had to put a nightlight in her room, but not because she was afraid of the dark. The dark was afraid of her.” “Jesus, Tommy.”

Jude felt a strange kind of emptiness in her body, a pull to disassociate. She’d forgotten the sensation over the decades. This family. This town. These people. Her soul held onto the memory of the pain they’d caused. Some things you could never leave behind.

“A man has to prove himself once. A woman has to prove herself every day.”

Jude had spent her career walking blind into squad rooms. The smell was always the same—sweat and desperation.

“‘Mistakes can give you a reason to forgive.’”

“Because we’re all cowards who refuse to talk about things that upset us.”

“They should call it fuckapause, because you run out of all the fucks you can give.”

“Baby remember what Papa said about mistakes.” “They can give you an opportunity to forgive.”

“I hope I’m the same kind of cop as you one day. I hope I learn to be that good.”

“I see Myrna taught you to be terrified of tears.” “I think it’s a genetic predisposition,” Emmy said. “Like how some people think cilantro tastes like soap.”

“When people die, your relationship with them doesn’t end. You find new ways to connect with them.”

“Why is it when Dad talked to me it sounded like advice, but when you talk to me it sounds like a fortune cookie?” Jude shrugged. “At least I use adverbs.”

“Denial gets a bad rap, but it can be very helpful on a temporary basis. The problem starts when you stay in denial, because trauma doesn’t go away. It stores itself in the body, particularly with children. The more they try to force it down, the more ways the body finds to push it back out.”

“People with trauma are more likely to struggle with mental health issues, to become addicted to substances, to self-harm. Then, there’s the physical component. Over time, trauma can alter your brain chemistry, cause illnesses like immune deficiencies, heart disease, sometimes it can even shorten your life span.”