A Flicker in the Dark Quotes

“There are so many subtle ways we women subconsciously protect ourselves throughout the day; protect ourselves from shadows, from unseen predators. From cautionary tales and urban legends. So subtle, in fact, that we hardly even realize we’re doing them.”
― Stacy Willingham, A Flicker in the Dark

“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that, in the process, he does not become a monster. If you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”
― Stacy Willingham, A Flicker in the Dark

“When people get hurt physically, you can see it in the bruises and the scars, but when they’re hurt emotionally, mentally, it runs deeper than that. You can see every sleepless night in the reflection of their eyes; you can see every tear stained into their cheeks, every bout of anger etched into the creases in their foreheads. The thirst for blood cracking the skin on their lips.”
― Stacy Willingham, A Flicker in the Dark

“The two of us together were childhood trauma wrapped in a bow and placed delicately on the doorsteps of every doctor in Louisiana. Everybody knew who we were; everybody knew what was wrong with us. Everybody knew, but nobody could fix it. So I decided to fix it myself.”
― Stacy Willingham, A Flicker in the Dark

“And for one single moment, like a flicker in the dark, it felt good.”
― Stacy Willingham, A Flicker in the Dark

“An inner conflict between the person she is and the person she thinks everyone wants her to be.”
― Stacy Willingham, A Flicker in the Dark

“I wanted to apologize to everyone for simply existing.”
― Stacy Willingham, A Flicker in the Dark

“And in that moment, the moment of the crash, it made me realize that monsters don’t hide in the woods; they aren’t shadows in the trees or invisible things lurking in darkened corners. No, the real monsters move in plain sight.”
― Stacy Willingham, A Flicker in the Dark

“that the past never stays where we try to keep it, stuffing it deep into the back of a closet and hoping to forget.”
― Stacy Willingham, A Flicker in the Dark

“Classic avoidance coping, Chloe. You know that never eliminates the problem—it only postpones it.”
― Stacy Willingham, A Flicker in the Dark

“It’s all the same: lonely souls in search of some company, any company.”
― Stacy Willingham, A Flicker in the Dark

“I imagine everyone has a Lena in their life at some point. A person who comes blazing in like a shooting star and fizzles out just as fast.”
― Stacy Willingham, A Flicker in the Dark

“I understand the way the brain can fundamentally fuck with every other aspect of your body; the way your emotions can distort things—emotions you didn’t even know you had. The way those emotions can make it impossible to see clearly, think clearly, do anything clearly. The way they can make you hurt from your head down to your fingertips, a dull, throbbing, constant pain that never goes away.”
― Stacy Willingham, A Flicker in the Dark

“it made me realize that monsters don’t hide in the woods; they aren’t shadows in the trees or invisible things lurking in darkened corners. No, the real monsters move in plain sight.”
― Stacy Willingham, A Flicker in the Dark

“It’s still raining when I wake up, the kind of slow, lazy rain that threatens to pull you back to sleep. I lie in the dark, feeling the warmth of Daniel beside me, his bare skin pressed against mine. His breath rhythmic and slow. I listen to the drizzle outside, to the low rumbles of thunder.”
― Stacy Willingham, A Flicker in the Dark

“I abandoned my mother because it’s easier this way. Just like I abandoned our childhood home, refusing to dig through our belongings and relive the horrors that took place there, instead just letting it sit and rot,”
― Stacy Willingham, A Flicker in the Dark

“numb the constant fear vibrating through my veins; it’s like a plucked guitar string reverberating through my bones, making them rattle.”
― Stacy Willingham, A Flicker in the Dark

“More often that not, it's just the thought of them that calms my nerves. I once told a claustrophobic patient to carry a single Xanax in her purse every time she boards a plane, its mere presence strong enough to elicit a mental reaction, a physical response. She probably wouldn't even need to take it, I told her; just knowing there was an escape within reach would be enough to ease the suffocating weight from her chest.”
― Stacy Willingham, A Flicker in the Dark

“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that, in the process, he does not become a monster. If you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you. —Friedrich Nietzsche”
― Stacy Willingham, A Flicker in the Dark

“This effect he has on me, I can’t explain it. It’s as if he knows what I’m doing at this very moment; the way I’m slipping underwater, too tired to even look for a branch to cling to, and he’s the hand that juts out from the trees, grabbing my shirt and yanking me back to land, back to safety, just in time.”
― Stacy Willingham, A Flicker in the Dark

“Every serial killer has their signature. Like a name scrawled in the corner of a painting or an Easter egg planted in the scenes of a film, artists want their work to be recognized, immortalized. Remembered beyond their years.”
― Stacy Willingham, A Flicker in the Dark

“Learning to fear should be a slow evolution”
― Stacy Willingham, A Flicker in the Dark

“but if he had to choose, would he rather his child be murdered by a complete stranger—an intruder in his town, in his life—or a familiar face, one he had welcomed into his home? His neighbor, his friend?”
― Stacy Willingham, A Flicker in the Dark

“I desperately need her practical yet protective words to drape over my shoulders like a blanket in winter, keeping me safe. Keeping me warm.”
― Stacy Willingham, A Flicker in the Dark

“He wasn’t sorry for what he had done; he was sorry he got caught.”
― Stacy Willingham, A Flicker in the Dark

“monsters don’t hide in the woods; they aren’t shadows in the trees or invisible things lurking in darkened corners. No, the real monsters move in plain sight.”
― Stacy Willingham, A Flicker in the Dark

“A home isn’t just a house, a collection of bricks and boards held together by concrete and nails. It’s more emotional than that. A home is safety, security. The place you go back to when the curfew clock strikes nine.”
― Stacy Willingham, A Flicker in the Dark

“But there’s a reason clichés exist. It’s because they’re true.”
― Stacy Willingham, A Flicker in the Dark

“It’s amazing what a single text message from Daniel can do to me—how thinking about him can alter my entire mood, my outlook on life.”
― Stacy Willingham, A Flicker in the Dark

“I think of the girls, of all the missing girls out there, and I force myself to keep walking toward the truth.”
― Stacy Willingham, A Flicker in the Dark