Out of the Woods Quotes

“other times, none of what made him a monster mattered because to scour for a reason was to look for an excuse.”
― Gregg Olsen, Out of the Woods: A Girl, a Killer, and a Lifelong Struggle to Find the Way Home

“An actor can spot a pretender in a couple of seconds. A survivor can assess where things are going while plotting their next five moves.”
― Gregg Olsen, Out of the Woods: A Girl, a Killer, and a Lifelong Struggle to Find the Way Home

“apparition.”
― Gregg Olsen, Out of the Woods: A Girl, a Killer, and a Lifelong Struggle to Find the Way Home

“Living with trauma is a moment-by-moment battle that takes no prisoners. And surviving trauma is probably more a hope and a wish than a sure thing.”
― Gregg Olsen, Out of the Woods: A Girl, a Killer, and a Lifelong Struggle to Find the Way Home

“The thing about trauma that many fail to grasp is that it frequently is a magnet for more of the same. That’s not victim shaming or blaming. It is simply a fact that left unchecked, trauma can manifest itself into other problems. Drug use. Lies. Trouble maintaining relationships.”
― Gregg Olsen, Out of the Woods: A Girl, a Killer, and a Lifelong Struggle to Find the Way Home

“God has shown me the face of evil. Evil is real only because we make it real. Evil can live in a person and society as well. I have been inflicted by an evil “demon” that is nurtured by our so-called Criminal Justice System.”
― Gregg Olsen, Out of the Woods: A Girl, a Killer, and a Lifelong Struggle to Find the Way Home

“How could an eight-year-old little girl outwit a serial killer? Survive in the woods for seven weeks? Live through that abuse? Shasta was a survivor before Joseph Edward Duncan III murdered her family. She had been sexually abused, gone to bed hungry, put up with drugged-out rantings from adults, lied because she’d been told to, pretended everything was fine, and used a hole in the ground as a toilet. And while all of that afforded her a unique resilience, the reason she made it out of the woods was something that those who have so much just can’t grasp.”
― Gregg Olsen, Out of the Woods: A Girl, a Killer, and a Lifelong Struggle to Find the Way Home

“In the 1970s, few talked about those kinds of things. Though some mothers and fathers would have delighted in painful and decisive retribution against a child’s tormentor, they were reluctant to let anyone know their sons had been violated. Shame overpowered the need for retribution.”
― Gregg Olsen, Out of the Woods: A Girl, a Killer, and a Lifelong Struggle to Find the Way Home

“Some people seemed to revel in the role of helping. It was a calling card that they’d present whenever it suited them. Attention for being a good person is as addictive as meth.”
― Gregg Olsen, Out of the Woods: A Girl, a Killer, and a Lifelong Struggle to Find the Way Home

“You are a lazy bitch.”
― Gregg Olsen, Out of the Woods: A Girl, a Killer, and a Lifelong Struggle to Find the Way Home

“Bumfuck, Idaho.”
― Gregg Olsen, Out of the Woods: A Girl, a Killer, and a Lifelong Struggle to Find the Way Home

“I don’t think that they had told my dad about the piece of Dylan’s skull that was stuck in my hair,” she said.”
― Gregg Olsen, Out of the Woods: A Girl, a Killer, and a Lifelong Struggle to Find the Way Home

“alone. If Jet made small talk or”
― Gregg Olsen, Out of the Woods: A Girl, a Killer, and a Lifelong Struggle to Find the Way Home