The Book of Cold Cases Quotes

“Am I bitter or am I sweet? Ladies can be either.”
― Simone St. James, The Book of Cold Cases

“But a novel always ends, the lies come to the surface, and the deaths are explained. Maybe one of the bad characters gets away with something—that’s fashionable right now—but you are still left with a sense that things are balanced, that dark things come to light, and that the bad person will, at least, most likely be miserable.”
― Simone St. James, The Book of Cold Cases

“It made no sense, but guilt doesn't have to. It simply exists, weighing you down and chocking you until you can't breathe anymore.”
― Simone St. James, The Book of Cold Cases

“Being a girl is the best,” she said, “because no one ever believes you’d do something bad. People think you’ll do nothing, which means you can do anything. I’ll show you.”
― Simone St. James, The Book of Cold Cases

“Aftershave, Beth thought, was one of the most important scents in any girl’s world. It was the smell of fathers, or uncles, or teachers, or priests, or husbands. Beth’s own father had worn aftershave, but the smell would be different on Detective Black, because sometimes aftershave was the smell of a man who wasn’t, and would never be, yours.”
― Simone St. James, The Book of Cold Cases

“Being a girl is the best,” she said, “because no one ever believes you’d do something bad. People think you’ll do nothing, which means you can do anything.”
― Simone St. James, The Book of Cold Cases

“It made no sense, but guilt doesn’t have to. It simply exists, weighing you down and choking you until you can’t breathe anymore.”
― Simone St. James, The Book of Cold Cases

“But I’ve always believed that murder is the healthiest obsession of all.”
― Simone St. James, The Book of Cold Cases

“It’s an abomination that shouldn’t exist,” Lily said, “and it knows it. That’s why I like it. It’s exactly like me.”
― Simone St. James, The Book of Cold Cases

“It made no sense, but guilt doesn't have to. It simply exists, weighing you down and choking you until you can't breathe anymore.”
― Simone St. James, The Book of Cold Cases

“She’d read a copy of On the Road that she’d swiped from the library, looking for the glamour and forbidden excitement, but all she could see in it was a bunch of boys driving around, showing up at their girlfriends’ when they needed a place to stay. Beth didn’t want to be a girlfriend who took in a broke boy and fed him, gave him money, and had sex with him before he went off to other adventures and other women. That didn’t sound like freedom, like free love. It sounded like a bore.”
― Simone St. James, The Book of Cold Cases

“I’ve survived this long and I’ve been as successful as I have, because I don’t ask about things I’d rather not know.”
― Simone St. James, The Book of Cold Cases

“Everyone kept secrets, at least for a little while.”
― Simone St. James, The Book of Cold Cases

“But a novel always ends, the lies come to the surface, and the deaths are explained. Maybe one of the bad characters gets away with something—that’s fashionable right now—but you are still left with a sense that things are balanced, that dark things come to light, and that the bad person will, at least, most likely be miserable. It was dark comfort, but it was still comfort. I knew my own tally by heart: My would-be killer had been in prison for nineteen years, seven months, and twenty-six days. His parole hearing was in six months.”
― Simone St. James, The Book of Cold Cases

“The air was still, as if the house were listening, waiting. I didn’t want to go upstairs, but I’d made a decision when I came here in the first place. I’d decided that despite whatever I’d seen the last time, despite the voice I’d heard on my phone, I wanted to risk it. I was tired of being so safe all the time. I was tired of being so afraid that I never lived my life.”
― Simone St. James, The Book of Cold Cases

“Yes, because I’m going to grant your interview,” Beth said. “We’ll start on Sunday. Be at the mansion at ten. I don’t cook, I don’t make coffee, and I don’t have servants, so bring your own shit.”
― Simone St. James, The Book of Cold Cases

“I’d tried the marriage thing, and I’d still been me. Except an unhappy version of me.”
― Simone St. James, The Book of Cold Cases

“midcentury Miss Havisham.”
― Simone St. James, The Book of Cold Cases

“Being a girl is the best, because no one ever believes you'd do something bad. People think you'll do nothing, which means you can do anything.”
― Simone St. James, The Book of Cold Cases

“No one understood single people. If you didn't have a partner and babies, how were you spending your time? I'd tried the marriage thing, and I'd still be me. Except an unhappy version of me.”
― Simone St. James, The Book of Cold Cases

“Beth was like an unknown species of bird. She wasn't a wife or a mother or a daughter, or even a true wild child, despite what the rumors said. She wasn't anything, which meant she could be anything. She wasn't man-hungry or money-hungry or any other kind of hungry. She drank too much, but she wasn't on drugs and she didn't gamble. She was beautiful, she was smart, and she was cold. Self-contained, impossible to crack, at only twenty-three.”
― Simone St. James, The Book of Cold Cases

“I told you, I had tits and an ass, so I wasn't a real person. A girl who had lost her parents couldn't possibly be spiraling, unable to cope. Easier to write that she's a slut. It sells more papers. The cops, too - they all thought the fact that I drank and partied meant I was evil. If I were a man, they would have had sympathy. They probably would have joined me.”
― Simone St. James, The Book of Cold Cases

“The Xanax was a gesture from my doctor when I had a series of anxiety attacks after the divorce. Sometimes just knowing you have it lowers the anxiety, she'd said. Just knowing I had pills did not, in fact, lower my anxiety, but I carried them with me anyway, in case the theory started working.”
― Simone St. James, The Book of Cold Cases

“That had been a lie - the worst lie I'd ever been told, that children should always be polite to adults. It was a lie that haunted me to this day.”
― Simone St. James, The Book of Cold Cases

“I pulled out my phone, put my earbuds in my ears, and played the audiobook I was in the middle of listening to. A thriller: a woman in danger, most of the characters possibly lying, everything not quite as it seemed... The woman's voice in my earbuds told me about death, murder, deep family secrets, people who shouldn't be trusted, lies that cost lives. But a novel always ends, the lies come to the surface, and the deaths are explained... you are still left with a sense that things are balanced, that dark things come to light, and that the bad person will, at least, most likely be miserable.”
― Simone St. James, The Book of Cold Cases