Killers Of A Certain Age Quotes

The worst thing is not that the world is unfree, but that people have unlearned their liberty. The more indifferent people are to politics, to the interests of others, the more obsessed they become with their own faces. The individualism of our time. Not being able to fall asleep and not allowing oneself to move: the marital bed. If high culture is coming to an end, it is also the end of you and your paradoxical ideas, because paradox as such belongs to high culture and not to childish prattle. You remind me of the young men who supported the Nazis or communists not out of cowardice or out of opportunism but out of an excess of intelligence. For nothing requires a greater effort of thought than arguments to justify the rule of nonthought… You are the brilliant ally of your own gravediggers. In the world of highways, a beautiful landscape means: an island of beauty connected by a long line with other islands of beauty. How to live in a world with which you disagree? How to live with people when you neither share their suffering nor their joys? When you know that you don’t belong among them?... our century refuses to acknowledge anyone’s right to disagree with the world…All that remains of such a place is the memory, the ideal of a cloister, the dream of a cloister… Humor can only exist when people are still capable of recognizing some border between the important and the unimportant. And nowadays this border has become unrecognizable. The majority of people lead their existence within a small idyllic circle bounded by their family, their home, and their work... They live in a secure realm somewhere between good and evil. They are sincerely horrified by the sight of a killer. And yet all you have to do is remove them from this peaceful circle and they, too, turn into murderers, without quite knowing how it happened. The longing for order is at the same time a longing for death, because life is an incessant disruption of order. Or to put it the other way around: the desire for order is a virtuous pretext, an excuse for virulent misanthropy. A long time a go a certain Cynic philosopher proudly paraded around Athens in a moth-eaten coat, hoping that everyone would admire his contempt for convention. When Socrates met him, he said: Through the hole in your coat I see your vanity. Your dirt, too, dear sir, is self-indulgent and your self-indulgence is dirty. You are always living below the level of true existence, you bitter weed, you anthropomorphized vat of vinegar! You’re full of acid, which bubbles inside you like an alchemist’s brew. Your highest wish is to be able to see all around you the same ugliness as you carry inside yourself. That’s the only way you can feel for a few moments some kind of peace between yourself and the world. That’s because the world, which is beautiful, seems horrible to you, torments you and excludes you. If the novel is successful, it must necessarily be wiser than its author. This is why many excellent French intellectuals write mediocre novels. They are always more intelligent than their books. By a certain age, coincidences lose their magic, no longer surprise, become run-of-the-mill. Any new possibility that existence acquires, even the least likely, transforms everything about existence.

Only women are ever called persnickety," Mary Alice said. "Men get to be 'detail oriented.

I’m a woman. Guilt is our birthright.

He was dressed like a tourist, his T-shirt tucked into belted jeans like a sociopath.

She might be less than what she had once been, but she was still worth a hell of a lot.

I loved you first and I will love you last

there were days I wrote get out of bed in my planner just to be able to feel like I’d accomplished something.

We looked like a girl gang that would have the Queen as our leader, all low heels and no-nonsense curls.

I'm a woman. Guilt is our birthright. Guilt if we want to be mothers, guilt if we take the Pill instead or choose to abort. Guilt if we stay home with our kids or guilt if we work. Guilt if we sleep with a man, guilt if we say no. Guilt if we're lucky enough to survive for no good reason.

...The entire plan was there in shimmering hot pink ink. "It looks like a My Little Pony murder plot," Mary Alice said. "Jesus, is that glitter?" "I like it," Natalie said loyally. "I find it hard to take us seriously as agents of vengeance when our plot looks like a kindergarten craft project.

It isn’t your anger that will make you good at this job. It is your joy.

People have died for less. I know; I was there.

I’m pretty sure somewhere in the afterlife, some woman is feeling ashamed of herself because her cloud isn’t as silver as the angel next door’s.

Jesus, what did you have for breakfast? A bowl of Honey Bunches of Bitch?

Billie lies awake for a long time, watching the passing lights of cars on the highway and thinking about a strange phenomenon the French call l’appel du vide, the call of the void. It’s when you stand up high, staring into an abyss, and have a strong desire to throw yourself into it. It can take other forms. You might be driving and suddenly think about jerking the wheel, sending your car into oncoming traffic. Or you might be out for a hike and fantasize about hurling yourself off a cliff. It is not a suicidal impulse. In fact, it is the opposite. Psychologists say it’s actually about how much a person wants to live. They perceive a nearby threat to themselves and they think about that threat because they want so much to survive.

What do you think my chances are there?” she asked. “Maybe he has a geriatric kink,” I said, shaking out my napkin. “Dab a little Metamucil behind each ear and go get him, cougar.” “No, no,” Mary Alice corrected. “She’s too old to be a cougar. She’s a saber-tooth tiger.

It's a comfortable place, mediocrity. Never pushing oneself to the limit to see what you can take. Never staring down your fears, never reaching into yourself to find that last bit of courage. You don't even know what it is that you're made of-and what's more, you seem distinctly uninterested in finding out.

Forty years on one of the most elite assassin squads on earth and it finished like this, with a free cruise and a bouncy letter from a girl who signed her letters with hashtags.

I like you a little more than I want to but not nearly as much as you think I do.

Trouble has smelled like a lot of things in my life. A job gone wrong. A one-way street I never should have turned down. A man in faded Levi's with a smile that broke my heart half a dozen times and loved it back together again.

You can, and you will. Women are every bit as capable of killing as men. And you have advantages that men do not. You are all attractive young women, and your appearance means men underestimate you. You will use this to your advantage.

Safe for now," Nat murmured. That had been another of the Shepherdess's dicta. Whenever you were safe, even if it was for a short time, it was important to give yourself a chance to exhale, to take nourishment and rest and live to fight again.

Because she doesn’t apologize for anything. She had a rotten start in life, but she’s made the best of it. She lives on her own terms. She knows who she is and what she wants, and she does what she is good at. And she has a good time doing it.

I was just reaching for my knitting needles when Mary Alice gripped my arm. "Play nice," she murmured. "I wasn't going to kill him," I muttered back. "But a little light stabbing might teach him some manners." "Focus on the job. I'll trip him when we get inside," she promised. "That's real friendship," I told her.

Mourning is a bitch. And it’s a process. You’re just not finished with it.” “That’s the point,” she said. “I think I am. At least I want to be. I am so sick and tired of waking up feeling like someone tore off one of my limbs. Every morning, for just a few seconds, I forget. I wake up and it hasn’t happened yet. There’s nothing but emptiness and calm. And then it comes crashing down and I hate it. I hate it so much.

Looking at the lives of those 36—which include orcas who were born and died in SeaWorld as well as orcas that were already a certain age in the wild before being captured—the

Even his dog is an asshole.

None of your husbands ever stuck around long enough for you to tell. You change marital partners like the rest of us change underwear,” Mary Alice retorted.

By the time she split from the third one, she’d given up entirely on marriage and decided to keep a string of what the kids call fuckbuddies.

Either Billie’s had a procedure or that swimsuit is doing god’s work. They’re jacked up to her collarbones just like when she was eighteen.

I live in a cottage in Yorkshire, where I bake bread and refinish antiques and shock the neighbors with naked tai chi in the garden.

So, for the five years you’ve been married, Akiko has believed your family is too homophobic to welcome your wife into their home? And that you would just go along with this?

Billie has not yet heard of Savile Row. It will be many months later that she learns about custom clothing and realizes that he has been her introduction to proper tailoring.

Not me,” Mary Alice said. “I’m being cremated and letting Akiko put my ashes in a nice urn. Maybe something from Pottery Barn. I can sit on the mantel and she can decorate me for holidays.

That you were taking contracts on the side.” I raised a brow. The cardinal rule of the Museum was that freelancing was strictly forbidden. It’s one of the things that separated us from hired guns. We killed to order only, targets that had been scrupulously vetted and chosen because their deaths would benefit humanity as a whole.

Guilt if we want to be mothers, guilt if we take the Pill instead or choose to abort. Guilt if we stay home with our kids or guilt if we work. Guilt if we sleep with a man, guilt if we say no. Guilt if we’re lucky enough to survive for no good reason. I’m so damned sick of it. I’ve never been so tired of anything in my life. I just . . . I just want to go to sleep forever.

I appreciate your courage in coming in here like this. Truly. I expected some ridiculous, theatrical caper, and instead you’re taking what’s coming to you like a man.

I’ve had my ass grabbed more times than I care to count, and there was exactly one Black field agent in the first twelve years I worked for them.

English and Americans joining together in a spirit of ‘screw you’ to their respective governments,” she says with a grin.

A bit of trouble with this? I’m having a goddamned nervous breakdown. The woman I love most in the world has—after five years of marriage—decided to finally tell me the truth about what she does. That’s five years of lies. That’s a shit-ton of lies.

I am interested in justice, not the law. There is an unfortunate difference.’ ” He

Scabbard?” I guessed. “Penis warmer,” she told me.

Forty years ago, Constance Halliday set us on this road and created her squad of Sphinxes. It hasn’t been exactly what any of us expected. But we have done our best, and we will make her proud. She challenged us to make justice our priority, and tomorrow, justice will be done.

She challenged us to make justice our priority, and tomorrow, justice will be done.

When Gilchrist and Sweeney aren’t debating the odds of getting Goldie Hawn into bed, they are trying to stump each other with film quotes.

I’m jealous, of course. He’s got a rich, pretty debutante and all I’ve got is a stiffy for the little brunette with the curly hair out there.

The first mission is finished with no casualties beyond Nat’s cracked rib and the blood still caked in Mary Alice’s hair.

...it was the smile that said, 'I know best. I know better than you.' The smile that said, 'I'm safe here and you're not.' The smile that said, 'I have a dick, so I win.

no stewardess would be caught dead with torn pantyhose.” Helen brandishes a familiar plastic egg. “I brought spares. Please go change while you still have time. I’ll start the coffee.

We made a plan to meet there the next morning for breakfast before heading out on our first shore excursion. I hoped exploring St. Kitts would rouse Helen’s interest. Mourning a spouse was one thing, but Helen seemed broken, as if her spirit had died right along with Kenneth.

Lonesome is habit,” she said with a shrug. “One that can be broken.

They look good but I was sick as a dog for eight months and my nipples are still numb.” “You’re here,” I reminded her. “I’m here.” She edged nearer, bumping my shoulder with her own. “The question is, for how long?

I am on the run for my life with a cat who hates to travel

Shepherdess of the Sphinxes by Leonor Fini.

Every person who identifies female and has rage. I feel you, sister. This one’s for you.

Gogh. The Woman in the Wood. Caravaggio. The Gorgon Tisiphone. Bruegel. The Plague Doctor.

It’s a comfortable place, mediocrity. Never pushing oneself to the limit to see what you can take. Never staring down your fears, never reaching into yourself to find that last bit of courage. You don’t even know what it is that you are made of

That’s the thing about being a sixty-year-old woman—no one notices you unless you want them to. That fact doesn’t do your ego any favors, but in cases like this, it was damned handy.

I’m a woman. Guilt is our birthright. Guilt if we want to be mothers, guilt if we take the Pill instead or choose to abort. Guilt if we stay home with our kids or guilt if we work. Guilt if we sleep with a man, guilt if we say no. Guilt if we’re lucky enough to survive for no good reason. I’m so damned sick of it. I’ve never been so tired of anything in my life. I just . . . I just want to go to sleep forever.

She sees the indignity of old age, how life becomes very small until there is nothing left of independence and power and beauty and freedom except a shell of a body that relies upon others for everything. It is terrible to witness

a woman. Guilt is our birthright. Guilt if we want to be mothers, guilt if we take the Pill instead or choose to abort. Guilt if we stay home with our kids or guilt if we work. Guilt if we sleep with a man, guilt if we say no. Guilt if we’re lucky enough to survive for no good reason. I’m so damned sick of it. I’ve never been so tired of anything in my life. I just . . . I just want to go to sleep forever.

l’appel du vide, the call of the void. It’s when you stand up high, staring into an abyss, and have a strong desire to throw yourself into it. It can take other forms. You might be driving and suddenly think about jerking the wheel, sending your car into oncoming traffic. Or you might be out for a hike and fantasize about hurling yourself off a cliff. It is not a suicidal impulse. In fact, it is the opposite. Psychologists say it’s actually about how much a person wants to live. They perceive a nearby threat to themselves and they think about that threat because they want so much to survive.

I'm a woman. Guilt is our birthright. Guilt if we want to be mothers, guilt if we take the pill instead or choose to abort. Guilt if we stay home with our kids or guilt if we work. Guilt if we sleep with a man, guilt if we say no. Guilt if we're lucky enough to survive for no good reason. I'm so damned sick of it. I've never been so tired of anything in my life. I just ... I just want to go to sleep forever!

I motioned for Minka to bring me something to write with. She found a marker, bright blue and smelling like fruit, the sort of thing My Little Pony would use to sign a slam book.

It isn’t your anger that will make you good at this job. It’s your joy.

Here, Mary Alice. Drink this and I’ll see if I can find you a flashlight.” Mary Alice furrowed her brow. “Flashlight?” “To find the stick up your ass. Let me know if you need a hand getting it out,” Natalie said sweetly.

I am interested in justice, not the law. There is an unfortunate difference.

Let justice be done though the heavens fall.

I didn’t go out with him again. Uncut,

It’s a comfortable place, mediocrity. Never pushing oneself to the limit to see what you can take. Never staring down your fears, never reaching into yourself to find that last bit of courage. You don’t even know what it is that you are made of—

Six-year-olds can’t be assholes,” Mary Alice says. “The fact that you think they can says a lot.” “Yeah, it says that you’ve clearly never met a six-year-old.

Fiat justitia ruat caelum. Billie has just enough Latin to translate the motto and she smiles to herself. Let justice be done though the heavens fall.

Most people grasp a weapon until their knuckles turn white, but that just tires out your hand. Like playing piano or giving a good hand job, it’s all in the wrist.

OSS? The SOE?” “Office of Strategic Services and Special Operations Executive,