The Lies I Tell Quotes

“The difference between justice and revenge comes down to who’s telling the story.”
― Julie Clark, The Lies I Tell

“I learned that the worst can happen and I’ll still be okay. Life is filled with lessons. We can either choose to suffer from them, or learn from them.”
― Julie Clark, The Lies I Tell

“Instinct is a funny thing, a whisper of trouble that we can never quite name, never quite define, that allows us to locate danger. Women are taught from a young age to ignore theirs. We’re forced to justify our instincts with evidence, or we’re taught to ignore them—as a way to keep the peace, to prioritize other people’s comfort over our own.”
― Julie Clark, The Lies I Tell

“It’s the girl code. We have to look out for each other because no one else will.”
― Julie Clark, The Lies I Tell

“The universe will always give you what you need.”
― Julie Clark, The Lies I Tell

“Convenience and comfort aren’t worth settling for. We can earn what we need; we don’t need a man to hand it to us.”
― Julie Clark, The Lies I Tell

“There’s a special kind of hell in not remembering trauma. It becomes a dark and faceless fear that lurks in unexpected places—the smell of whiskey, a certain type of bar stool, a song, a laugh”
― Julie Clark, The Lies I Tell

“Home disappeared for me the day my mother died. And ever since, I’ve been chasing the ghost of a feeling. Looking for a reset that would put my life back in order. But at some point, a person has to stop chasing something that doesn’t exist and just move on.”
― Julie Clark, The Lies I Tell

“You can prepare yourself for something, imagine it a hundred different ways, and still find yourself breathless when it actually happens.”
― Julie Clark, The Lies I Tell

“Because proximity to corruption and greed is like living on top of a nuclear waste site. Eventually it’ll seep into your blood and poison you as well.”
― Julie Clark, The Lies I Tell

“It looks like Kat finally kicked you out,” I say, my words floating just under the sound of traffic behind us. “What’s that saying? ‘The bell tolls for you, motherfucker.’” I give him a sweet smile. “Or something like that.”
― Julie Clark, The Lies I Tell

“Being vulnerable is the fastest way to connect with another person.”
― Julie Clark, The Lies I Tell

“My therapist had been the one to suggest writing fiction as a tool in my recovery. “When you write a fictional account of something, you’re in control. You get to decide how it ends. I want you to write what happened to you that day, but I want you to change it so you have all the power.”
― Julie Clark, The Lies I Tell

“and I wish for just one moment of honesty between the two of us. That I could start from the beginning and tell her all of it. Go back to that rainy afternoon in the internet café when I saw a familiar face and an opportunity.”
― Julie Clark, The Lies I Tell

“I’m not the naive reporter I was back then. If I’m going to pull myself out of the professional hole I’ve been in for the last several years, exposing Meg and unraveling a decade of her cons and thievery will be how I’ll do it. She owes me that.”
― Julie Clark, The Lies I Tell

“And that was the night I started my search for Meg Williams, the woman who had exploded Cory Dempsey’s life and then disappeared. The woman who would soon destroy mine as well.”
― Julie Clark, The Lies I Tell

“Life is filled with lessons. We can either choose to suffer from them, or learn from them.”
― Julie Clark, The Lies I Tell

“Blaming Meg for the lie that put me in Nate’s path was just a circumstance of chance, no more useful than blaming a lightning storm for a forest fire. Everything burned to a black pile of ash, until new growth can begin to emerge.”
― Julie Clark, The Lies I Tell

“A good story can be seductive. Most people are inclined to believe one rather than examine the evidence piling up in front of them.”
― Julie Clark, The Lies I Tell

“Kristen’s girl code—that you help other women, whenever you can. That I never picked a mark simply because I could.”
― Julie Clark, The Lies I Tell

“It’s a complicated shame to have someone you trust deceive you, the pain of that betrayal compounded by the unraveling of the life you thought you’d have.”
― Julie Clark, The Lies I Tell

“Con artists often target people who are emotionally vulnerable,” I said. “People who need to believe the reality they’re selling, desperate for a solution to whatever problems they’re facing.”
― Julie Clark, The Lies I Tell

“Ten years ago, Meg made a phone call that derailed my life. I lost my career and my place in the world. She stole my sense of safety and self-worth, and every day since then, I’ve had to live with the consequences of that call. I’ve had to accept fear as a daily part of my life.”
― Julie Clark, The Lies I Tell

“Sometimes, you have to leave a job early—you either run through other people’s goodwill or you realize the risk of finishing it isn’t worth what you’d gain by staying.”
― Julie Clark, The Lies I Tell

“This job required me to see connections others couldn’t. I had to think ten steps ahead and imagine several scenarios simultaneously. Over the years, my instincts had become razor sharp, and I was rarely wrong.”
― Julie Clark, The Lies I Tell

“After a while, if you’re not careful, you can lose sight of the line. You no longer think in terms of me or them and only in terms of us.”
― Julie Clark, The Lies I Tell

“It’ll be easy to pull her in and feed her the pieces I need her to have. And because she’ll be so close, it’ll be impossible for her to see the whole picture. Like standing under the Eiffel Tower—when you’re inside of it, it’s just a bunch of crisscrossed steel. It’s only from a distance you can see it for what it really is.”
― Julie Clark, The Lies I Tell

“Men and accountability,” she says. “They rarely go together.”
― Julie Clark, The Lies I Tell

“Here’s the thing about the truth—it makes everything surrounding it seem like the truth as well. One tiny fact—one true thing—can spread out and legitimize all the lies I’ve told.”
― Julie Clark, The Lies I Tell

“The ingredients of any good con are patience and trust.”
― Julie Clark, The Lies I Tell