All the Dangerous Things Quotes

“I had come to think of him as a library book, entering my life on rented time. Something that I could enjoy for a few hours, curled up and comfortable, devouring as much of him as possible before our time was up. And because he wasn't mine, I couldn't scribble in the margins or write my name on the spine; I couldn't leave my mark on him in any discernable way.”
― Stacy Willingham, All the Dangerous Things

“Maybe you need to stop retracing your footsteps. Maybe you need to try a new path.”
― Stacy Willingham, All the Dangerous Things

“But that’s the thing about grief: There is no manual for it. There is no checklist outlining the optimal way to move through it and move on.”
― Stacy Willingham, All the Dangerous Things

“The truth is, people love violence—from a distance, that is. Anyone who disagrees is either in denial or hiding something.”
― Stacy Willingham, All the Dangerous Things

“But aren’t all of our lives just stories we tell ourselves? Stories we try to craft so perfectly and cast out into the world? Stories that become so vivid, so real, that eventually we start to believe them, too?”
― Stacy Willingham, All the Dangerous Things

“it hit me like a truck: It’s because mothers—and, honestly, women in general—are conditioned from birth to feel guilty about something. We always think things are our fault. We always feel the need to apologize: For being too much or too little. Too loud or too quiet. Too driven or too content.”
― Stacy Willingham, All the Dangerous Things

“People tend to stash their dirtiest secrets in the most common of places.”
― Stacy Willingham, All the Dangerous Things

“And some of these people have secrets. All of them do, really. But some of them have the real ones, the messy ones. The deep, dark, shadowy ones that lurk just beneath the skin, traveling through their veins and spreading like a sickness. Dividing, multiplying, then dividing again. I wonder which ones they are: the ones with the kinds of secrets that touch every organ and render them rotten. The kinds of secrets that will eat them alive from the inside out.”
― Stacy Willingham, All the Dangerous Things

“Sometimes, the mind is just stronger than our attempts to override it.”
― Stacy Willingham, All the Dangerous Things

“After all, the violence always comes to us in ways we could never expect: quickly, quietly. Masked as something else. Ben has always known that you don’t have to pull the trigger to get away with murder—sometimes, all you need to do is load the gun and let it go off on its own.”
― Stacy Willingham, All the Dangerous Things

“They don’t want to get too uncomfortable. They don’t want to actually live through what I’ve lived through, every ugly moment. They just want a taste. They want enough for their curiosity to be satiated—but if it gets too bitter or too salty or too real, they’ll smack their lips and leave dissatisfied. And we don’t want that. The truth is, people love violence—from a distance, that is. Anyone who disagrees is either in denial or hiding something.”
― Stacy Willingham, All the Dangerous Things

“I learned fairly quickly that when people asked how I was doing, how I was holding up, they didn’t actually want an answer—not a real one, anyway—so I simply ignored that little needle prick that stuck in my jaw, the threat of impending tears, and plastered on a smile, giving them the answer I knew they expected: that everything was good, everything was fine. In fact, no. Everything was perfect.”
― Stacy Willingham, All the Dangerous Things

“should have seen this coming. I’m a storyteller myself, after all, and a storyteller never goes into a story without actually knowing the story. Without having an idea of what it is you want to tell. You don’t go in blind, searching for answers. You have the answers—your answers, at least; the answers you want—and you go in searching for proof.”
― Stacy Willingham, All the Dangerous Things

“I remember picking it up, feeling the familiar well of tears erupt at the thought of losing yet another person in my life that I loved.”
― Stacy Willingham, All the Dangerous Things

“At the time, it reminded me of the stars: how two can collide and fuse into one—bigger, brighter, stronger than before. But what I
didn’t know then was that when they collide too fast, they don’t fuse at all. Instead, they explode, evaporating into nothing.”
― Stacy Willingham, All the Dangerous Things

“It ignited a spark in me that I knew I needed—I knew I couldn’t be a good person, a good mother, without first being good to myself—”
― Stacy Willingham, All the Dangerous Things

“If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.”
― Stacy Willingham, All the Dangerous Things

“Because,” he says at last, a twitch of a smile appearing on his lips, “you had your kid with you that time.”
― Stacy Willingham, All the Dangerous Things

“but emotions and feelings and all those other sticky subjects were simply buried beneath piles of money and presents until they disappeared altogether.”
― Stacy Willingham, All the Dangerous Things

“Nobody in here could possibly imagine what I’ve just spent my day doing: recounting the most painful moment of my life for the enjoyment of strangers. I have a speech now. A speech that I recite with absolute detachment, engineered in just the right way.”
― Stacy Willingham, All the Dangerous Things

“Because that's the thing with the audience, the thing I learned long ago. They don't want to get *too* uncomfortable. They don't want to actually live through what I've lived through, every ugly moment. They just want a taste.”
― Stacy Willingham, All the Dangerous Things

“I tried to forget. But deep down, I knew it was too late. I knew there was nothing I could do to stop it. It was inevitable, Ben and I. We had chemistry. A reaction had started—a spark, ignited—and both of us would soon be pursing our lips and blowing on it gently, giving it life. Strengthening a kindling into a full-blown fire.”
― Stacy Willingham, All the Dangerous Things

“She used to tell us that all those little experiences you could never put your finger on—a tickle on the back of your neck, a nagging feeling that you were forgetting something, that creeping sense of déjà vu that flared up when you visited someplace new—were other souls trying to send you a message. Living or dead, it didn’t matter. Just other souls. I never thought of it as being haunted, exactly. Just gently reminded. A peaceful prodding that there was something that needed to be remembered. Something important.”
― Stacy Willingham, All the Dangerous Things

“entering my life on rented time. Something that I could enjoy for a few hours, curled up and comfortable, devouring as much of him as possible before our time was up. And because he wasn’t mine, I couldn’t scribble in the margins or write my name on the spine; I couldn’t leave my mark on him in any discernable way. Sometimes, when he stood up from his barstool—the room around us dark and quiet, his glass bone dry—I could feel him draining from me slowly, like blood seeping from an open wound.”
― Stacy Willingham, All the Dangerous Things

“Allison is survived by her husband, Benjamin, her parents, Robert and Rosemary, and her younger brother, Waylon.”
― Stacy Willingham, All the Dangerous Things

“But now, I know. He was there, at that house. This is what he’s been hiding. This is Waylon’s secret. This is what he didn’t want me to know. He knows Ben.”
― Stacy Willingham, All the Dangerous Things

“The girl I had seen in the painting—the girl Margaret had pointed to and assumed to be me—wasn’t actually me at all. And she isn’t wearing a nightgown. The one in the middle: She’s wearing a robe. “Isabelle.” I jump at the voice behind me, knocking my wineglass over with my knee. Then I spin around, the red liquid spilling across the floorboards like blood, and register a body in the dark before me. It’s my mother, the glow of the moon illuminating her face; tears streaming down her cheeks like rain on a window. “Isabelle, honey, let me explain.”
― Stacy Willingham, All the Dangerous Things

“Waylon,” I say, answering immediately after seeing his name on the screen. “You’ll never guess—” “Hey, Isabelle,” he interrupts, sounding breathless and excited. “Just got a few words in with Detective Dozier.” I stop, my mouth hanging open as I glance at the clock. Dozier just left here a few minutes ago. There’s no way he could have gotten to the station that fast.”
― Stacy Willingham, All the Dangerous Things

“I thought Waylon cared. I thought he wanted to help. But now I don’t know why he’s here. I don’t know what he wants. Now I know that he’s lying. I know that he has a secret, too.”
― Stacy Willingham, All the Dangerous Things

“He’s always known how to suffocate someone from the inside out; how to starve them, drown them, push them so close to the edge that when they look down and see nothing but empty air beneath them—when they dangle their foot off the ledge and feel themselves starting to fall—the idea of it might actually feel good.”
― Stacy Willingham, All the Dangerous Things