Their Vicious Games Quotes

“is a boy who has never met a consequence in his life. This is a boy who has been told that he is to die for, to kill for. This is a dangerous boy poised to become an even more dangerous man.”
― Joelle Wellington, Their Vicious Games

“With nothing to do, we are discarded dolls in the prettiest of dollhouses, and that feels like another mind game—we are without use until a Remington picks us up and decides to play a game.”
― Joelle Wellington, Their Vicious Games

“There are no girls like me. There is only me.”
― Joelle Wellington, Their Vicious Games

“She is a moon, tethered forever to a planet that she does not want anything to do with but can’t exist without.”
― Joelle Wellington, Their Vicious Games

“Rule one: Wealth is power. If you don’t have it, keep your head down. I thought I’d gotten that one down to a science over the past twelve years. Rule two: Knowledge is too—now that power I had in spades. But with knowledge comes the responsibility to know when to keep your mouth shut and when not to (see rule one). I chose not to and I chose wrong.”
― Joelle Wellington, Their Vicious Games

“No denying that for the Remingtons, deaths are preferred, simpler, tidier, and baked into everything they’ve set up for us. “What’s changed?” is a stupid question with a simple answer.”
― Joelle Wellington, Their Vicious Games

“There's nothing worse than a boy who is lovely and knows it.”
― Joelle Wellington, Their Vicious Games

“I'm not an asterisk or a footnote in my own life. I don't have to hold my tongue here, because I'm the fucking star”
― Joelle Wellington, Their Vicious Games

“But it’s all fake. Rotten, just like Penthesilea said. It’s gaslighting and manipulation and casual racism and classism and never-ending total bullshit. Not to mention murder.”
― Joelle Wellington, Their Vicious Games

“Why do I take up so much space in your head, Esme? I’m practically living there rent-free.” “That’s good, then, seeing as that’s all you and your parents can afford.”
― Joelle Wellington, Their Vicious Games

“Penthesilea Bonavich is perfect on paper,” Leighton drawls. “But the heart wants what the heart wants, and he wants … what was it you called me all those years ago? ‘Working-class gar—”
― Joelle Wellington, Their Vicious Games

“I’ve never wanted to be part of that couple coming out of high school. The couple that goes to college together, that never grows outside of their partner.”
― Joelle Wellington, Their Vicious Games

“I do trust you. I don’t trust the rest of those bloodthirsty creatures out there. They’re going to eat you alive. I thought maybe some of them would be different, but they aren’t. They will lie and steal and kill,” Graham presses.”
― Joelle Wellington, Their Vicious Games

“Now, listen up, Adina. That dress, while you look lovely in it, has done nothing but paint a target on your back, just like mine. And not just for Esme. Before, they would have discounted you, kept you alive to pick off at the end. And now that they have another, easier target, they won’t miss.”
― Joelle Wellington, Their Vicious Games

“Oh, good. Someone who isn’t the color of copy paper,” she says in a stiff, almost British accent.”
― Joelle Wellington, Their Vicious Games

“There's nothing worse than a bit who is lovely and knows it.”
― Joelle Wellington, Their Vicious Games

“WHEN MY MOM PULLS ME close in my cap and gown and whispers into my ear, “I’m so proud of you, Adina,” that’s when I know—I’ve lost.”
― Joelle Wellington, Their Vicious Games

“I expected it was the Alderidges. Esme was dead and they were still being investigated for embezzlement. They had nothing more to lose by accusing the Remingtons, and everything to gain. With the Remingtons on the chopping block, eyes would turn away from them. Maybe they’d even sue, get some of their money back.”
― Joelle Wellington, Their Vicious Games

“I came here for your right reasons—because I thought I wasn’t enough. But I’d rather die than be turned into some weird shiny smoothed-over version of myself that self-medicates with wine and becomes some fucker’s puppet,” I say viciously, lifting the sword again. “I’m good. Thanks.”
― Joelle Wellington, Their Vicious Games

“And I won the right to this title. I shed blood for this title. You would never understand what that means. What it is to be in their places. So I will hear her rules and I will determine if we accept,” Leighton says, and when she looks back at me, she is considering again. “The other way to win?”
― Joelle Wellington, Their Vicious Games

“You have your dreams. Your future you want restored. I have Pierce. I have this. This is what I was bred for. To grow up, get a liberal arts degree, marry well, elevate my family to new heights with that marriage, smile and shake hands, have babies, and pick out the fine china. Be a good influence on the wretched Remington boy. Lead him to success, not yourself. Keep him from doing harm or damaging his reputation. The family reputation. Our class’s reputation. ‘Shrink yourself, Penthesilea, so that he never looks small. So that he never feels wrong.”
― Joelle Wellington, Their Vicious Games

“He could. No, Pierce doesn’t care about anyone but himself. He looks at you like you’re an ending. You’re the ‘happily ever after.’ He would take your come-up story and make it loud and make it his. Class-crossed lovers. Traversing boundaries to be together. Third has big plans for his son. Governor, I think, and a governor needs a story.”
― Joelle Wellington, Their Vicious Games

“The Remingtons are royalty in New England, but … so are the Bonaviches. Penthesilea is descended from people who came off the fucking Mayflower. Her father trades stock as a hobby. Her mother raises horses as a side hustle. There’s no reason for Penthesilea to be here other than a stupid place at Harvard, and she could get that herself. Is she really that desperate to get him back?”
― Joelle Wellington, Their Vicious Games

“I evaluate her soft blond waves, the plushness of her purple-painted mouth, the way the skin of her throat looks thinner than it should. She is physically perfect, kept that way by the wealth she’s acquired, that she’d do anything to hold on to. “I’m not stupid, you know. Or … or so blinded by the prize that I don’t know that I’m being used as a pawn. Your pawn.”
― Joelle Wellington, Their Vicious Games

“You won’t be,” Graham says patiently. “You’ll be aiming for the leg, because you’re good and kind and not a raging murderer. Now, come on, loosen up.”
― Joelle Wellington, Their Vicious Games

“Some will rise to the occasion. Some will fall. Here, we weed out the weak from the strong. Here, we see who finishes first. Let us begin.”
― Joelle Wellington, Their Vicious Games

“My father wants to expand into the States. We’re in real estate. The Remingtons have their fingers in every pie—petroleum, glass, energy, fiber. Things you need to build buildings. And I had this idea … that we should contract with them. We’d pay a reduced price for using them exclusively. And in turn, since it’s a crowded market here, the Remingtons would help us make room. I’m here to lay groundwork. To force this contract and prove that I know what I’m talking about.”
― Joelle Wellington, Their Vicious Games

“Pretending is easier when it’s something you’ve done all your life, and confronting the truth is too ugly for pretty girls. Margaret was a pretty girl too, and that did not serve her at all.”
― Joelle Wellington, Their Vicious Games

“I did a campaign with Gucci on horseback,” she says, like that’s something everyone does.”
― Joelle Wellington, Their Vicious Games

“You look like you fit in pretty nicely,” I say. Her story does hold an uncomfortable mirror up to my own life, except it’s distorted by the fact that this woman looks exactly like them and nothing like me.”
― Joelle Wellington, Their Vicious Games