The Quarry Girls Quotes

Men in packs can do terrible things, things they wouldn’t have the hate to do alone. It’s no excuse, just something you should know.

in the future, you might not want to wear so much makeup. You don’t want to attract the wrong kind of attention.” Maureen’s shoulders tightened. “Why don’t you tell them to stop looking instead of us to stop shining?

You’ll recognize those men, the ones inclined to their dark side, because they’ll expect you to carry their load. They’ll smother your anger with their pain, they’ll make you doubt yourself, and they’ll tell you they love you the whole time. Some do it big, like Ed, but most do it in quiet steps, like your father.

In our neighborhood, the problem wasn’t the person who made the mistake; it was the person who acknowledged the truth.

I stared across the crackling fire at Brenda, the glow lighting up her heart-shaped face. My love for her was carved into my bones.

Smile girls, you'll look so much prettier. So I'll damn well decide for myself when I'm ready to smile.

The law might not recognize it, but fifteen’s a girl and sixteen a woman, and you get no map from one land to the next. They air-drop you in, booting a bag of Kissing Potion lip gloss and off-the-shoulder blouses after you. As you’re plummeting, trying to release your parachute and grab for that bag at the same time, they holler out you’re pretty, like they’re giving you some sort of gift, some vital key, but really, it’s meant to distract you from yanking your cord. Girls who land broken are easy prey.

There’s also the truth that 70 percent of serial killer victims are female. You better believe that knowing you’re prey heightens your interest in the predator. You find yourself desperate to make sense of largely random acts of serial murder, believing that if you can understand motivation and hunting patterns, you can protect yourself.

Their family and friends are the only ones who can understand the depths of their grief, the life’s work of creating meaning in loss, of having their world shaped by violence they couldn’t see coming and did not deserve.

Historian Peter Vronsky hypothesizes that while several factors must align to make a murderer (genetics and frontal lobe injuries being two common ones), World War II was responsible for this golden age of serial killers a generation later.

You’ll recognize those men, the ones inclined to their dark side, because they’ll expect you to carry their load. They’ll smother your anger with their pain, they’ll make you doubt yourself, and they’ll tell you they love you the whole time.

Maureen was more alive than any of us. She protected kids from bullies. When men catcalled her, she’d catcall back. She’d demanded we pierce her ears first because she was Maureen.

She’d cracked like a mirror after, and her pieces were so sharp, none of us could get close enough to put her back together again.

The applause felt like it was injected straight into my veins.

Was it contagious, the emptiness I felt? Was he worried he’d catch it?

As far as she could tell, men didn’t have close friendships, not like women did, but they still had that human need for connection. Every movie and TV show and magazine article told them it was their job to go out and grab what they wanted at the same time it told them that women were theirs for the taking.

She stared up at him, at this man-she-knew-who-was-a-stranger, this person who’d risked everything in his world to kidnap another human so he could thrust away like a zoo monkey whenever he wanted. This loser had made a biological act so imperative that he was willing to go to prison to feel the same relief he could get with his own hand.

They weren’t misguided, these men who couldn’t take a hint, who kept at a woman who was clearly uninterested. They were broken. Few of them would go so far as kidnapping, sure, but every one of them was after someone they could make feel less than, someone they imagined was beneath them, and they believed every woman was beneath them.

He was hunched in front of the soda fountain, filling his plastic cup with a suicide, a little bit of every flavor.

Only his eyes changed. His pupils dilated, big liquid pools cracking like black yolks, spilling into his irises.

Hazel eyes a little too close together, like bowling ball holes.

With Mom, what went up must come down, and it was a mystery what exact combination would make life too much for her.

And a tape recorder, spinning slow like taffy, taking down every word.

Belief is a powerful lens; it can shape the world world to it.

... the problem wasn't the person who made the mistake; it was the person who acknowledged the truth.

Girls who land broken are easy prey.

The truth is there's always a hidden world under the one we initially perceive, but grasping its nature can be inconvenient, unsettling even dangerous.

In our neighborhood, the problem wasn’t the person who made the mistake; it was the person who acknowledged the truth. Those were the rules.

Despite the sheer amount of things, the home had been clean until recently. It had felt almost like a big, safe nest, which I thought was what Mrs. Hansen had been after.

Women always try, but men like that are born bad.

He smiled, and it seemed genuine. “I can tell you’re smart. The quiet ones always are. And a smart girl would hightail it out of this backwater hole soon as she could.

How could she be a teacher if she didn’t fight? She would break free of this prison. She had things to do with her life.

Now I was going to make Ed swallow every last damn pill.

they do terrible things in packs, boys-who-are-men, things they’d never have the hate to do alone.

That terrible awareness that life could twist on you in a blink wasn’t something a person could forget.

listen without telling you to appreciate the attention? Be happy. The guy likes you. “You don’t want to burn it all up,

You can’t live in the dark and feel good about yourself.

That’s when I understood the raw truth of it: the men in charge were looking out for themselves.

It’d been days since I’d had a good night’s sleep. I laid my head on my pillow. I fought to stay awake, but the promise of rest pulled me down like tentacles in the quarry.

Her raw fear, and even more so how desperately she was working to hide it, made me want to weep.

Men in packs can do terrible things, things they wouldn’t have the hate to do alone.

The air felt like warm soup.

the moon’s incurious eye.

Good women keep their homes clean, and good neighbors mind their own business, honey,

My mind wandered as I went through the motions of Catholic mass, kneeling, praying, and also with you–ing.

Mom had gotten herself so gorgeous she nearly broke the mirror,

Claude’s father was one of those guys who thought if you didn’t laugh, it was because you hadn’t heard the joke clearly enough.

He was putting on a show for us, that much was clear, but why were we all watching it?

She laughed again. It sounded like a string of empty metal cans clattering in the wind.

Didn’t say,” Mr. Sullivan said, pretending the deep-fryer knobs needed fiddling with. “I’m really sorry about what happened to your friends.

the

(I recommend researching Gilles de Rais if you’re low on nightmare fuel),

Mary had written in her journal, “Should I die, I ask that my stuffed animals go to my sister. If I am murdered, find my killer and see that justice is done.

while Maureen

When I played it, I straight-up left my body, the garage, planet Earth. It felt like I set myself on fire and put myself out at the exact same time.

world tasting like hope and blue sky. Turn it up! Your hips can’t help but wiggle. Man, it feels like that song was written for you, like you’re gorgeous and loved and the entire planet is in order.

After that, Mrs. Hansen stopped visiting. Mom receded from a lot of my memories and Dad came in clearer focus, making breakfast in Mom’s place, driving me to school on the days it rained. When Mom showed up, she was a force, sparkling at dinner parties, running around the kitchen cooking four-course dinners, but it seemed to cost her. She stayed at that level—50 percent of her—for a couple months.

Yeah,” I said, nursing the milkshake I’d brought outside. The cup was still half-full, moisture beading across the wax coating. It tasted artificial, like someone had asked God to turn the color pink into food.

I hadn’t meant to tell her the last bit. Sometimes Mom was fine taking in that much information. But then there were the other times. I could see her tumblers working. Her face had gone slack. The back of my neck grew cold waiting to see which version was going to erupt. But finally, happily, the correct words dropped into place, and out rolled a perfectly normal sentence. “Wonderful! Your dad and I will come see you girls play.” Did she know she was lying?

Every waitress had a group of guys who mistook professional courtesy for a personal relationship. She’d never liked it, but she’d thought she understood it. As far as she could tell, men didn’t have close friendships, not like women did, but they still had that human need for connection. Every movie and TV show and magazine article told them it was their job to go out and grab what they wanted at the same time it told them that women were theirs for the taking.

Like Michelangelo spending eight months in the mountains of Carrara, selecting the most perfect blocks of marble for the tomb of Pope Julius II, Françoise, who attached extreme importance to the inherent quality of the materials out of which her masterpieces were to be wrought, had been down to Les Halles in person more than once to choose the finest slabs of rump steak, the best shin of beef and calf’s foot. She threw herself so strenuously into this pursuit that my mother, seeing our old servant turn red in the face, feared that, as the sculptor of the Medici tombs had sickened in the quarries at Pietrasanta, she might make herself ill from overwork. (p. In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower, 17)

She also insisted we call her by her first name. “To hell with all their rules,” she said, cackling. “Screw pretending to be respectful during the day and dancing with the devil at night. I prefer you be genuine with me, and I’ll return the favor.

A hole that probably hid prehistoric water monsters, slithering, sharp-toothed creatures that needed immense depths to survive but that sometimes, only every few years or so, would unfurl a tentacle and wrap it around your ankle and suck you down down down.

Specifically, according to Vronsky, while all American soldiers who fought in WWII were trained to kill, a small contingent used the cover of state-sanctioned violence to also rape, torture, and collect human body parts as trophies. Though most returning GIs successfully reintegrated into society, some brought the brutality of war into their homes, abusing their families behind closed doors. That abuse, occurring as it did in a culture openly promoting war, created the fertile ground from which the first major crop of American serial killers would spring.

I entered a different world. You’ve felt yourself on the edge of it when a cherry song hits the radio. You’re driving, windows rolled down to the nubs, a warm breeze kissing your neck, the world tasting like hope and blue sky. Turn it up! Your hips can’t help but wiggle. Man, it feels like that song was written for you, like you’re gorgeous and loved and the entire planet is in order. But here’s the thing they don’t tell you: That magic, king-or-queen-of-the-world sensation? It’s a million times better when you’re the one playing the music. Maybe even a billion.

They don’t seem to care,” she said, shaking her head. “The police. This whole damn neighborhood . . . no one here cares about the girls, not the ones who speak out. I bet Beth McCain was another one they couldn’t keep quiet, like Maureen. Strong girls, both of them. I hear the whispers. Can you believe people are saying she ran away from me?

You’ve felt yourself on the edge of it when a cheery song hits the radio. You’re driving, windows rolled down to the nubs, a warm breeze kissing your neck, the world tasting like hope and blue sky. Turn it up! Your hips can’t help but wiggle. Man, it feels like that song was written for you, like you’re gorgeous and loved and the entire planet is in order.

She adored kids, though, loved their grubby little faces and their ridiculous giggles and the perfect precious light they brought into this world. She wanted to be their teacher, that person they could count on no matter what, the one who saw their specialness, whether it was being good at reading or listening or drawing hand turkeys with color crayons. Was there

But Gloria kept her eyes trained on me, kept gripping my face. “You’ll recognize those men, the ones inclined to their dark side, because they’ll expect you to carry their load. They’ll smother your anger with their pain, they’ll make you doubt yourself, and they’ll tell you they love you the whole time. Some do it big, like Ed, but most do it in quiet steps, like your father.

His quarry parties were the stuff of legend—trash cans brimming with wapatuli, music that was cool on the coasts but wouldn’t reach Midwest airwaves for another six months, daring leaps from the highest granite cliffs into the inky pools below, some more than a hundred feet straight down. No gradual decline, just a fathomless, aching cavity scooped out of the earth, a wound that cold water seeped in to fill like blood.

Oh,” Mom said. “Oh.” It was all happening so fast, this normal talk and movement on the surface, and below, Mom’s terror growing. I looked around to see if anyone else had heard it, the delicate pop indicating she had left her frame of mind. She was floating, untethered, just inside the front door. She would sink her claws into the first person who could moor her. I’d witnessed it a dozen times before. It wasn’t cruel; it was survival. Her head was lolling, searching for me, or maybe Junie.

Girls who land broken are easy prey. If you’re lucky enough to come down on your feet, your instincts scream to bolt straight for the trees. You drop your parachute, pluck that bag from the ground (surely it contains something you need), and run like hell, breath tight and blood pounding because boys-who-are-men are being air-dropped here, too. Lord only knows what got loaded into their bags, but it does not matter because they do terrible things in packs, boys-who-are-men, things they’d never have the hate to do alone.

The law might not recognize it, but fifteen‘s a girl and sixteen a woman, and you get no map from one land to the next. They air-drop you in, booting a bag of Kissing Potion lip gloss and off-the-shoulder blouses after you. As you‘re plummering, trying to release your parachute and grab for that bag at the same time, they holler out "your are pretty", like they‘re giving you some sort of gift, some vital key, but really, it‘s meant to distract you from yanking your cord. Girls who land broken are easy prey. If you‘re lucky enough to come down on your feet, your instincts scream to bolt straight for the trees. You drop your parachute, pluck that bag from the ground (surely it contains something you need), and run like hell, breath tight and blood pounding because boys-who-are-men are being air-droped here, too. Lord only knows what got loaded into their bags, but it does not matter because they do terrible things in packs, boys-who-are-men, things they‘d never have the hate to do alone...we were racing to survive the open-field sprint from girl to woman.

Looking at him, she realized he could have his pick of women, at least in Saint Cloud. This only made her laugh harder, a shrill cackle mixed with sobbing. Did he not even know what real love, good love, felt like? Had no one told him that the embarrassingly animal act was the doorway, not the destination, that the fun part, the magic, the whole point was letting your guard down completely with another person? That it was the connection and vulnerability that elevated what was essentially an extended sneeze to something worth fighting wars over? He’d stolen a Maserati to get at its keychain. He was an Olympic-level idiot. The King of Dumbasses

I stared out at a crowd who had come to see Johnny Holm play and was likely wondering what the hell three girls were doing onstage. My knees were visibly quavering. Knockity knock knock. Maureen cradled her bass and Brenda held her guitar, but I was seated at the Johnny Holm drummer’s gear because there wouldn’t be enough time to tear down mine and put up his between sets. The drummer had been nice when he’d shown me how to adjust his seat, everyone had been kind, yet I was so terrified that I felt like the color white held together with electricity. If anyone looked at me sideways, I’d split into a million zinging atoms, never to be whole again

Historian Peter Vronsky hypothesizes that while several factors must align to make a murderer (genetics and frontal lobe injuries being two common ones), World War II was responsible for this golden age of serial killers a generation later. Specifically, according to Vronsky, while all American soldiers who fought in WWII were trained to kill, a small contingent used the cover of state-sanctioned violence to also rape, torture, and collect human body parts as trophies. Though most returning GIs successfully reintegrated into society, some brought the brutality of war into their homes, abusing their families behind closed doors. That abuse, occurring as it did in a culture openly promoting war, created the fertile ground from which the first major crop of American serial killers would spring.

Come on, Gray,” another sailor called. “Just one toast.” Miss Turner raised her eyebrows and leaned into him. “Come on, Mr. Grayson. Just one little toast,” she taunted, in the breathy, seductive voice of a harlot. It was a voice his body knew well, and vital parts of him were quickly forming a response. Siren. “Very well.” He lifted his mug and his voice, all the while staring into her wide, glassy eyes. “To the most beautiful lady in the world, and the only woman in my life.” The little minx caught her breath. Gray relished the tense silence, allowing a broad grin to spread across his face. “To my sister, Isabel.” Her eyes narrowed to slits. The men groaned. “You’re no fun anymore, Gray,” O’Shea grumbled. “No, I’m not. I’ve gone respectable.” He tugged on Miss Turner’s elbow. “And good little governesses need to be in bed.” “Not so fast, if you please.” She jerked away from him and turned to face the assembled crew. “I haven’t made my toast yet. We ladies have our sweethearts too, you know.” Bawdy murmurs chased one another until a ripple of laughter caught them up. Gray stepped back, lifting his own mug to his lips. If the girl was determined to humiliate herself, who was he to stop her? Who was he, indeed? Swaying a little in her boots, she raised her tankard. “To Gervais. My only sweetheart, mon cher petit lapin.” My dear little rabbit? Gray sputtered into his rum. What a fanciful imagination the chit had. “My French painting master,” she continued, slurring her words, “and my tutor in the art of passion.” The men whooped and whistled. Gray plunked his mug on the crate and strode to her side. “All right, Miss Turner. Very amusing. That’s enough joking for one evening.” “Who’s joking?” she asked, lowering her mug to her lips and eyeing him saucily over the rim. “He loved me. Desperately.” “The French do everything desperately,” he muttered, beginning to feel a bit desperate himself. He knew she was spinning naïve schoolgirl tales, but the others didn’t. The mood of the whole group had altered, from one of good-natured merriment to one of lust-tinged anticipation. These were sailors, after all. Lonely, rummed-up, woman-starved, desperate men. And to an innocent girl, they could prove more dangerous than sharks. “He couldn’t have loved you too much, could he?” Gray grabbed her arm again. “He seems to have let you go.” “I suppose he did.” She sniffed, then flashed a coquettish smile at the men. “I suppose that means I need a new sweetheart.” That was it. This little scene was at its end. Gray crouched, grasping his wayward governess around the thighs, and then straightened his legs, tossing her over one shoulder. She let out a shriek, and he felt the dregs of her rum spill down the back of his coat. “Put me down, you brute!” She squirmed and pounded his back with her fists. Gray bound her legs to his chest with one arm and gave her a pat on that well-padded rump with the other. “Well, then,” he announced to the group, forcing a roguish grin, “we’ll be off to bed.” Cheers and coarse laughter followed them as Gray toted his wriggling quarry down the companionway stairs and into the ladies’ cabin. With another light smack to her bum that she probably couldn’t even feel through all those skirts and petticoats, Gray slid her from his shoulder and dropped her on her feet. She wobbled backward, and he caught her arm, reversing her momentum. Now she tripped toward him, flinging her arms around his neck and sagging against his chest. Gray just stood there, arms dangling at his sides. Oh, bloody hell.

There’s this girl…this woman I can’t get out of my mind.” He spilled the story of his seduction of sweet, innocent Amanda McCormick for Rufus’s examination. When he finished talking, there was another silence. “You did that?” Rufus’s voice was as deep and gravelly as a quarry. “Fucked some poor virgin while posing as her fiancé?” “Yeah.” “You got some balls. How’d you know you’d be a close enough match to this Baxter?” “Brown hair, blue eyes, that’s all she seemed to know about him.” Spence couldn’t explain his need for the rush of tempting fate. “I took a chance. It was a gamble.” “Jesus, you’re a mean son of a bitch.” “I didn’t want to hurt her. I was just having fun.” He sounded like a spoiled child even to himself. “And now you want to go see this woman and try to make it right?” Rufus said. “Just how the hell did you think you were going to fix it? By showing up and wrecking her marriage, if you haven’t done that already?” It was Spence’s turn to pause. “Haven’t you done enough to this lady? Where’s your head, boy? Leave her alone.” “I can’t. I have to see her again.” He didn’t want to share his dreams of the little girl. He’d sound crazy. Rufus laughed harshly. “So you can try and get another piece of tail?” “No. It’s not like that.” “What? You think you’re in love. Son, you don’t know the first thing about it. If you did, you’d be putting this woman’s needs above your own.” He thought of the little girl telling him to go to Amanda. “Maybe what she needs is me.” Rufus made a scoffing noise. “A woman needs a man who’ll stand by her, be there through hard times and good. From what you’ve told me these past months, this is the longest you’ve stayed put in one place in your life and that’s only ‘cause they won’t let you out.” “I just want to do the right thing.” “Then do like I say. Leave her be. You think she’s going to be happy to see you again?” Spence pulled his blanket tighter around his shoulders and watched a gray cloud puff from his mouth. “You still there, boy?” “Where else?” “Don’t take it too hard. Everybody does things they’re sorry for. Sometimes there’s just no way to make it right.” He leaned back against the wall and reviewed the stupid chain of events that had landed him in jail. Maybe Rufus was right and there was no way he could ever apologize for what he’d done to Amanda. He should let the whole thing slide and leave the woman in peace.

The corpse’s hand dropped over the side, pulling the sheet off her face, what was once beautiful gone gray and bloated.

You’re driving, windows rolled down to the nubs, a warm breeze kissing your neck, the world tasting like hope and blue sky.

Man, it feels like that song was written for you, like you’re gorgeous and loved and the entire planet is in order.

The law might not recognize it, but fifteen’s a girl and sixteen a woman, and you get no map from one land to the next.

THE ROCK OF RUBIES, AND THE QUARRY OF PEARLS Some ask'd me where the Rubies grew: And nothing I did say, But with my finger pointed to The lips of Julia. Some ask'd how Pearls did grow, and where: Then spoke I to my girl, To part her lips, and shew me there The quarrelets of Pearl.

background. Nancy had an antique brass bed. I had the feeling these girls weren’t two of a kind. Meanwhile, I was going through things. The name she was using here was Glenna Cole, but I found identification cards of various sorts in several other names. The

In tracking, it’s a known quantity that your quarry may, will probably, elude you. You can follow the sign—the prints, the broken branches—but you may never find the creature that left little pieces of himself behind. Even when he’s in your sights, one wrong move and he will dash away. Every good hunter knows that nature is smarter, faster, more sensitive than he will ever be. If you catch what you’re stalking, it’s a gift, something that’s been offered, not something taken. But you still hunt if you want to survive.

Baby-chicks are girls aged twelve to fifteen who prostitute themselves in the quarries, walk in single file, and don’t hesitate to band together and alert the soldiers should a customer refuse to pay the agreed rate. The slim-jims are barely adolescent boys who toil as casual laborers: extracting, carrying, and washing the gravel to separate out the diamond crystals.

In Navashtra, in Saypur, a young girl obeys a strange impulse and sings a song to the stones in a nearby quarry. She and the rest of her family, who are picnicking nearby, stare in fear and confusion as the stones slowly roll down the slopes to spell the words: THANK YOU, THAT WAS LOVELY.