If You Tell Quotes

“no one can help a troubled person who doesn’t think they need it.”
― Gregg Olsen, If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood

“I loved my mother because I didn’t know I had a choice. I had to love her.”
― Gregg Olsen, If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood

“From the inside, a violent home looks starkly different than it does to outsiders. Children who grow up with cold, narcissistic, or sadistic parents don’t know that a caretaker with the potential for extreme cruelty is not the norm. Even when they see a contrast in the families of friends, they’ve already been robbed of the ability to challenge parental authority. Instead of seeking help, they hunker down and adapt.”
― Gregg Olsen, If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood

“She’d done exactly what she’d wanted to do. Making people unhappy was her way of having fun.”
― Gregg Olsen, If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood

“Dying, she thought, is the only way out of what is happening to me.”
― Gregg Olsen, If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood

“Victims of abuse can still love the monster. This ambivalent loyalty might just be the predator’s ultimate form of damage.”
― Gregg Olsen, If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood

“I think as a kid I depended on her, her being my mom, I don’t think I ever thought I had any other options but to live with her. As an adult I kick myself for not doing something to help myself back then. My mother could show affection and say kind words when she wanted to . . . she would abuse me, then the very next day hug me or tell me how I was her baby and she loved me blah, blah. I think it worked like any abusive relationship”
― Gregg Olsen, If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood

“A bent toward sadism forms during certain associations in early adolescence, coupled with a callous temperament that needs control and lacks remorse. Even so, more than one-third of sadists report discovering their perverted propensities well into adulthood; they enjoy the sense of authority that arises from having their way with a vulnerable and submissive human being, and their fantasies grow increasingly more sophisticated and perverse. Because they seek stimulation, they become quite inventive in the types of cruelties they inflict on others. The usual nurturing that accompanies parenthood means nothing to them.”
― Gregg Olsen, If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood

“she would abuse me, then the very next day hug me or tell me how I was her baby and she loved me blah, blah. I think it worked like any abusive relationship . . . a person feels trapped, nowhere to go . . . they are abused and then the abuser reins them back in with kindness and the person being abused settles, not quite thinking about the next time they are beat etc. just relieved the abuse is over (for now). My mother was a ticking time bomb . . .”
― Gregg Olsen, If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood

“She later said that she had only told the police “like ten percent of the bad stuff.” Investigators, however, understood that 10 percent of a nightmare is still a nightmare.”
― Gregg Olsen, If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood

“Victims who want to get help recognize how difficult it would be to convince authorities of the sadist’s behavior. They know that if they try but fail, the punishment will be severe. So, they often decide to just wait it out and hope they can eventually flee.”
― Gregg Olsen, If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood

“It isn’t a mask that she wears to cover the past but an invisible badge of courage.”
― Gregg Olsen, If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood

“Sisters forever. Victims no more.”
― Gregg Olsen, If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood

“Enduring their mother was what bound them together. And while they might have had three different dads, they were always 100 percent sisters. Never half sisters. Their sisterhood was the one thing the Knotek girls could depend upon, and really, the only thing their mother couldn’t take away. It was what propelled them to survive.”
― Gregg Olsen, If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood

“Randy had an inkling that something else was afoot. Shelly’s father appeared too eager to pass his daughter off to another man.”
― Gregg Olsen, If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood

“Some small towns are built on bloody earth and betrayal.”
― Gregg Olsen, If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood

“Humor was the curtain she put around everything.”
― Gregg Olsen, If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood

“Enduring their mother was what bound them together. And while they might have had three different dads, they were always 100 percent sisters. Never half sisters.”
― Gregg Olsen, If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood

“Investigators, however, understood that 10 percent of a nightmare is still a nightmare.”
― Gregg Olsen, If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood

“Their parents had killed multiple people. They’d done the most cruel and vile things anyone could do to another person. And so much of it had happened right before their eyes.”
― Gregg Olsen, If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood

“Killing someone is something you never get over,” he said. “Not even for a second. It’s always there.”
― Gregg Olsen, If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood

“I think it worked like any abusive relationship . . . a person feels trapped, nowhere to go . . . they are abused and then the abuser reins them back in with kindness and the person being abused settles, not quite thinking about the next time they are beat etc. just relieved the abuse is over (for now).”
― Gregg Olsen, If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood

“that 10 percent of a nightmare is still a nightmare.”
― Gregg Olsen, If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood

“Enduring their mother was what bound them together. And while they might have had three different dads”
― Gregg Olsen, If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood

“would be waving a broken”
― Gregg Olsen, If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood

“Less of the worst was better than more.”
― Gregg Olsen, If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood

“percent sisters. Never half sisters. Their sisterhood was the one thing the Knotek girls could depend upon, and really, the only thing their mother couldn’t take away. It was what propelled them to survive.”
― Gregg Olsen, If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood

“The eldest, Nikki, lives in the moneyed suburbs of Seattle, in a million-dollar home of gleaming wood and high-end furnishings. She’s in her early forties, married, with a houseful of beautiful children. A quick tour through a gallery of family photos in the living room touches on the good life she and her husband have made for”
― Gregg Olsen, If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood

“Beatings like that nearly always ended in blood. On one occasion, Shelly pushed Nikki into a walk-in closet. Hard. Shelly was screaming at the top of her lungs. “You fucking little bitch!” Shelly jumped on Nikki and started punching and hitting while the girl cried out and begged her to stop.”
― Gregg Olsen, If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood

“she noticed he had quite a belly; it hung over his belt like a fleshy fanny pack. His hair was thinning on top, but he kept it long in a ponytail that he secured with a rubber band.”
― Gregg Olsen, If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood