Dark Pattern (The Naturalist, #4)

by Andrew Mayne

They get to feel as though they came close to death without actually being touched by it. Perhaps this explains why people love vampire stories or women write to serial killers in prison. We all like to come close to death but not actually touch it.

Maybe our lizard brain can’t tell the difference between our choices and our random circumstances well enough to know that bad stuff sometimes just happens and no matter what perverse pleasure you get in knowing it didn’t happen to you . . . it can.

“Is it clean enough that you’d lick it?” Ask yourself that about your hands the next time you leave the bathroom.

The more noble appearing the institution, the more prone it is to corruption, because everyone is looking the other way.

think the only thing holding me back is that it would feel like cheating on Jillian. Not physically, but intellectually. Starting something like that would mean a lot of time on the phone. It’d mean time away from Jillian. No matter how earnest my intentions, it’d be a kind of betrayal.

My Shrinky Dink box

“You had such big ideas back then, Teddy. Maybe it’s time to start having them again.”

I want to ask her if she had a weak father figure she needs to compensate for, but I’m afraid of being slapped.