The Spider and the Fly Quotes

“I interviewed teenage hoodlums, wet-eyed pedophiles, and wary gang members—every one of them guided by a logic rooted in wounds. The logic of pain wound itself around every perception, strangling interpretation, coloring vision. Pain could grow until it was as outsized as a sun. It could throb inside you like a second heart.”
― Claudia Rowe, The Spider and the Fly: A Writer, a Murderer and a Story of Obsession

“Men lying to get women into bed has kept the human race going for centuries!” he crowed, delighted that I hadn’t seen the punch line coming. “People are corrupt by nature—narrow, limited, racist, nationalist, arrogant. They always need to pigeonhole others, divide themselves into categories and groups. Everybody’s got to be something, they can’t just be human.”
― Claudia Rowe, The Spider and the Fly: A Writer, a Murderer and a Story of Obsession

“He had no special knowledge or preternatural charm. He was what I’d made him.”
― Claudia Rowe, The Spider and the Fly: A Writer, a Murderer and a Story of Obsession

“Aspiration falls away until it becomes possible, in the midst of decay, to fool yourself into believing everything is fine.”
― Claudia Rowe, The Spider and the Fly: A Writer, a Murderer and a Story of Obsession

“You are a narcissist!” she’d shriek at my childish transgressions—a game left on the coffee table, the laundry unfolded. I had no idea what that word meant, but among her array of curses, narcissist was the worst.”
― Claudia Rowe, The Spider and the Fly: A Writer, a Murderer and a Story of Obsession

“In Kendall’s mind, there were only three types of women: good, bad, and fallen. Being a journalist muddied my position in his moral hierarchy, but Kendall tried to ignore that inconvenience and slot me into the first group. It was cold comfort. I’d read that in a man like this, afflicted with the conditions Dr. Stone had mentioned, admiration was intertwined with hatred. So labeling a person “good” meant he would almost automatically see her as withholding approval. Any resulting feelings of stress or shame then morphed immediately into overwhelming rage. That”
― Claudia Rowe, The Spider and the Fly: A Writer, a Murderer and a Story of Obsession