The Sun Down Motel Quotes

“The person who could be truly alone, in the company of no one but oneself and one’s own thoughts—that person was stronger than anyone else. More ready. More prepared.”
― Simone St. James, The Sun Down Motel

“For the odd girls, the nerdy girls, and the murderinos. This one is yours.”
― Simone St. James, The Sun Down Motel

“I put my book down, finding a Post-it note to use as a bookmark, because folding the corner of a page—even in a thirty-year-old book—is sacrilege.”
― Simone St. James, The Sun Down Motel

“This place is dark.” “Some of us like the dark. It’s what we know.”
― Simone St. James, The Sun Down Motel

“the books I read were the dark kind—about scary things like disappearances and murders, especially the true ones. While other kids read J. K. Rowling, I read Stephen King. While other kids did history reports about the Civil War, I read about Lizzie Borden.”
― Simone St. James, The Sun Down Motel

“I took my glasses off and set them to the table... The world went pleasantly blurry, and I didn´t have to see the details anymore.”
― Simone St. James, The Sun Down Motel

“I think it’s instructive to be awake in the middle of the night every once in a while. To really see what you’re missing while you’re usually sleeping.”
― Simone St. James, The Sun Down Motel

“How it didn’t matter how afraid or how careful you were—it could always be you.”
― Simone St. James, The Sun Down Motel

“I’m the one you didn’t kill,”
― Simone St. James, The Sun Down Motel

“I bet you could sleep in the right place,” I said. “Not just at the motel. You can’t spend the rest of your life here. I bet you could sleep if you were in a place that made you happy. Where you knew you’d wake up to something good.”
― Simone St. James, The Sun Down Motel

“The person who could be truly alone, in the company of no one but oneself and one’s own thoughts—that person was stronger than anyone else.”
― Simone St. James, The Sun Down Motel

“How it was always girls who ended up stripped and dead like roadkill. How it didn’t matter how afraid or how careful you were—it could always be you.”
― Simone St. James, The Sun Down Motel

“Misery came off him like a smell.”
― Simone St. James, The Sun Down Motel

“Her entire life in Illinois had been about what doing what other people expected, never what she actually wanted.”
― Simone St. James, The Sun Down Motel

“The person who could be truly alone, in the company of no one but oneself and one's own thoughts - that person was stronger than anyone else.”
― Simone St. James, The Sun Down Motel

“Dark things are real things,”
― Simone St. James, The Sun Down Motel

“Dark things are real things”
― Simone St. James, The Sun Down Motel

“It could still be her now. It could be her tomorrow, or the next day, or the next. It could be Marnie, it could be Helen. It could be Viv’s sister back home in Illinois. This was the reality: It wasn’t just these girls. It could always, always be her or someone she knew.”
― Simone St. James, The Sun Down Motel

“You need to stop before you get yourself killed.”
― Simone St. James, The Sun Down Motel

“sleep.” “I bet you could sleep in the right place,” I said. “Not just at the motel. You can’t spend the rest of your life here. I bet you could sleep if you were in a place that made you happy. Where you knew you’d wake up to something good.”
― Simone St. James, The Sun Down Motel

“What would I have done? Because this could have been her, storming out of the house at eighteen after a fight with her mother. Or leaving work. Doing what women did every day. It could still be her now. It could be her tomorrow, or the next day, or the next. It could be Marnie, it could be Helen. It could be Viv’s sister back home in Illinois. This was the reality: It wasn’t just these girls. It could always, always be her or someone she knew.”
― Simone St. James, The Sun Down Motel

“Viv, it was all about the woman in the flowered dress. Who, she now knew, was Betty Graham.”
― Simone St. James, The Sun Down Motel

“it didn’t matter how afraid or how careful you were—it could always be you.”
― Simone St. James, The Sun Down Motel

“and paused, feeling the familiar beat of fear. She sat in her beat-up Cavalier,”
― Simone St. James, The Sun Down Motel

“company of no”
― Simone St. James, The Sun Down Motel

“thoughts—”
― Simone St. James, The Sun Down Motel

“The woman wasn’t real, and yet—Viv saw her.”
― Simone St. James, The Sun Down Motel

“This is a hunting knife, but it works for what you want. Small enough to fit in a purse. Sharp enough that you mean business.” She looked up to see that he was smiling at her. “You can even take it jogging in the park. Some pervert comes up to flash you—boom! At least, if I were a girl, that’s what I would do.”
― Simone St. James, The Sun Down Motel

“Libraries were my places. I was that girl who maxed out her library card every week, starting with The Hobbit and The Witch of Blackbird Pond and moving up from there.”
― Simone St. James, The Sun Down Motel

“Except that once I graduated from reading The Black Stallion, the books I read were the dark kind—about scary things like disappearances and murders, especially the true ones. While other kids read J. K. Rowling, I read Stephen King. While other kids did history reports about the Civil War, I read about Lizzie Borden.”
― Simone St. James, The Sun Down Motel