The Lies You Wrote Quotes

“Trolls were trolls for a reason. On psychological tests, they routinely scored high for narcissism and sadistic tendencies—they weren’t there in good faith; they were there to feed the darkness in their own souls. She wanted to tell AlexFan that he just had to wait a little bit longer.”
― Brianna Labuskes, The Lies You Wrote

“The best way to get anyone to change their mind is not to lecture them from a place of superiority, but to become a part of their in-group and then alter their opinions from the inside.”
― Brianna Labuskes, The Lies You Wrote

“She was playing with fire she thought she could control. Except that’s how entire forests burned to the ground.”
― Brianna Labuskes, The Lies You Wrote

“It’s a self-sealing loop. Any evidence against their belief is a part of the conspiracy theory”
― Brianna Labuskes, The Lies You Wrote

“made me notice my children once again. Because I can see a monster prowling behind Alex’s eyes now. Alex hides him well, with a careful mask, but I have always been good at seeing monsters.”
― Brianna Labuskes, The Lies You Wrote

“Becks viewed her children as legacies instead of individuals.”
― Brianna Labuskes, The Lies You Wrote

“For too long, it had also reminded her that adults wouldn’t just ride in to save the day. No one was going to help you if it even slightly inconvenienced them. You had to take care of things yourself.”
― Brianna Labuskes, The Lies You Wrote

“Isabel had to view her as a liability. And liabilities in Isabel’s world were eliminated. The truth was, Delaney had been living on borrowed time. She was always going to become one of Isabel’s victims. She had just hoped to outmaneuver her before that happened.”
― Brianna Labuskes, The Lies You Wrote

“After all, out in the mountains, it wasn’t the noise you feared—it was the silence.”
― Brianna Labuskes, The Lies You Wrote

“All this is to say that there are ways to tell if a suicide note has been forged or coerced. There are some people out there who think that’s what happened with Alex Parker’s suicide letter. But if you refer to my next slide, you’ll see examples of all the points I just gave out. Alex Parker’s suicide letter was genuine.”
― Brianna Labuskes, The Lies You Wrote

“Instructions on how to dust a table or mow the lawn, or, as in the above example, what library fines are due. Psychologists studying the issue say it’s because many people who are considering suicide have lost the ability to distinguish trivial matters from important ones. Others say that what may seem trivial to you and me, might not be to the author. At the end of the day, paying a library fine is about integrity, after all.”
― Brianna Labuskes, The Lies You Wrote

“Just as with forced confessions, falsified suicide notes reveal themselves oftentimes in the word choices made by the author. Researchers have found that simulated suicide notes are more likely to have verbs that are linked to a mental state—to know and to think, for example. The writers utilize abstract concepts such as life and the universe. So, for example, I don’t know my purpose here, but I think I might find it in the darkness. Whereas in genuine notes, you see simple action verbs—tell, do, and get, along with more concrete concepts. The directives look like, Tell John my bank account number is on the paper in the top drawer. Or, I owe five dollars to the library, have Deb pay that fine for me. Real letters also often have a high instance of what we call trivia, not as in extra facts but as in trivial—insignificant and common, stemming from the Latin word for where three roads meet. Genuine suicide notes tend to be full of what look like petty details.”
― Brianna Labuskes, The Lies You Wrote

“The sheriff hadn’t cut Becks Parker out of the picture. She’d cut Isabel out. Because otherwise someone might have recognized her as Delaney Moore.”
― Brianna Labuskes, The Lies You Wrote

“She wanted to tell AlexFan that he just had to wait a little bit longer. Soon, so soon, he would be able to say he was right all along.”
― Brianna Labuskes, The Lies You Wrote

“On psychological tests, they routinely scored high for narcissism and sadistic tendencies—they weren’t there in good faith; they were there to feed the darkness in their own souls.”
― Brianna Labuskes, The Lies You Wrote

“Adopted in 1998.” “Records sealed tight,” Raisa said, and she met his eyes and said what they both knew to be true. “Delaney Moore is one of the Parker sisters.”
― Brianna Labuskes, The Lies You Wrote

“No one had made her go to the warehouse to see the consequences of her mistake. They should have made her go to the warehouse.”
― Brianna Labuskes, The Lies You Wrote

“The girl had been in a warehouse across town. By the time the task force realized that, she had been killed. The man who had kidnapped her had blown his brains out. Both corpses were found after neighbors reported the gunshots. The man had been the girl’s swim coach. Raisa had barely made it to the bathroom to throw up when she’d heard the news, remnants of the bile catching behind her molars.”
― Brianna Labuskes, The Lies You Wrote

“And a connection to Kilkenny, apparently. Raisa no longer trusted Kilkenny’s take on the situation.”
― Brianna Labuskes, The Lies You Wrote

“Delaney shouldn’t have been able to guess this,” Raisa said as softly as she could to Kilkenny. He stood next to her, arms crossed. His expression, per usual, gave little away. “She still doesn’t fit the profile,” Kilkenny said, but it didn’t actually sound like an argument. “And she has an alibi.”
― Brianna Labuskes, The Lies You Wrote

“Once he started wondering about her, he might also start to wonder about what had happened to the tips that he hadn’t followed up on. What had happened to those monsters, the ones the FBI didn’t listen to her about.”
― Brianna Labuskes, The Lies You Wrote

“What had really sold it for her, though, was that he had a tragedy in his past. She always trusted traumatized people more, though she wasn’t sure why.”
― Brianna Labuskes, The Lies You Wrote

“The tips of his ears turned red and Raisa had to just stare at him for a moment, stunned: one, that he knew the reference; two, that he was embarrassed about it; and three, that unshakable, poised FBI forensic psychologist Callum Kilkenny blushed in his ears.”
― Brianna Labuskes, The Lies You Wrote

“Please,” Raisa said, a little desperate. She’d had only the one beer last night, but she hadn’t slept almost at all.”
― Brianna Labuskes, The Lies You Wrote

“From what you know of this case,” Kilkenny said, “who would you predict is the next victim?” Raisa tried to hide her surprise with another long gulp of water. This was Kilkenny trying to get into Jenna’s head, but it came off as an FBI agent unsure of where to go next. It was a risk, but she could see it paying off.”
― Brianna Labuskes, The Lies You Wrote

“Delaney had a particular kind of personality Raisa had seen before—different from the mansplainers or well, actually types. Instead, it was someone who was just used to being the smartest person in the room. They genuinely wanted to inform people but also lacked a strong grasp of what could be considered common knowledge in any conversation.”
― Brianna Labuskes, The Lies You Wrote

“isn’t a true believer?” “No, but that’s what makes her so good at it,” Delaney said. “The best way to get anyone to change their mind is not to lecture them from a place of superiority, but to become a part of their in-group and then alter their opinions from the inside.”
― Brianna Labuskes, The Lies You Wrote

“Regardless of what modern media might portray, the FBI generally had a good sense of the serial killers operating in the US, even if they didn’t actually know their names. There were usually fewer than one hundred active killers at any given time.”
― Brianna Labuskes, The Lies You Wrote

“She wore her long brown hair in twin braids, and even sitting down, she seemed lanky, slim and tall. In a roomful of people wearing black, she was almost too colorful to look at, her sunflower-yellow dress paired with a turquoise vest. She wore a ring on every finger and several layers of necklaces. All in all, she seemed like she’d wandered into the FBI war room after getting lost on her way to a crystals store and decided this was an interesting place to hang out.”
― Brianna Labuskes, The Lies You Wrote

“From then on, Delaney kept her tips anonymous. The truth was, she wasn’t seeking out crimes, not really. That came with the territory of plundering the internet’s darkest corners. It wasn’t a what that she was looking for with these searches. It was a who.”
― Brianna Labuskes, The Lies You Wrote