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.

For the odd girls, the nerdy girls, and the murderinos. This one is yours.

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.

This place is dark.” “Some of us like the dark. It’s what we know.

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.

How it didn’t matter how afraid or how careful you were—it could always be you.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I’m the one you didn’t kill,

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.

Misery came off him like a smell.

Her entire life in Illinois had been about what doing what other people expected, never what she actually wanted.

Dark things are real things

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.

It was crazy. It was the kind of story you told years later while your listeners rolled their eyes, because they had no idea how the terror felt on the back of your neck.

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.

I've been gone a long time. You don't know what it's like to have unresolved shit in your past, shit that weighs you down and draws you back to a certain place.

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.

and paused, feeling the familiar beat of fear. She sat in her beat-up Cavalier,

The woman wasn’t real, and yet—Viv saw her.

company of no

thoughts—

You need to stop before you get yourself killed.

it didn’t matter how afraid or how careful you were—it could always be you.

Dark things are real things,

Viv, it was all about the woman in the flowered dress. Who, she now knew, was Betty Graham.

Well, sure,” Heather said. “Isn’t every hotel haunted since The Shining? People have probably died there, I bet.

grabbed my coat. “We can go now. The sun’s starting to come up. We have just enough light.” “Don’t you have to be at work?” Heather asked. “They can fire me. I came to Fell for this, remember? This is all I want.

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.

That’s the other thing,” I said. Beneath me, the ice machine made a random rumble, like a belch, and the inner workings clicked. It was weird, thinking about this machine making ice year after year when no one ever needed it. I waited politely until it was finished before I continued.

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.

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.

Big and little they went on together to Molalla, to Tuska, to Roswell, Guthrie, Kaycee, to Baker and Bend. After a few weeks Pake said that if Diamond wanted a permanent traveling partner he was up for it. Diamond said yeah, although only a few states still allowed steer roping and Pake had to cover long, empty ground, his main territory in the livestock country of Oklahoma, Wyoming, Oregon and New Mexico. Their schedules did not fit into the same box without patient adjustment. But Pake knew a hundred dirt road shortcuts, steering them through scabland and slope country, in and out of the tiger shits, over the tawny plain still grooved with pilgrim wagon ruts, into early darkness and the first storm laying down black ice, hard orange-dawn, the world smoking, snaking dust devils on bare dirt, heat boiling out of the sun until the paint on the truck hood curled, ragged webs of dry rain that never hit the ground, through small-town traffic and stock on the road, band of horses in morning fog, two redheaded cowboys moving a house that filled the roadway and Pake busting around and into the ditch to get past, leaving junkyards and Mexican cafes behind, turning into midnight motel entrances with RING OFFICE BELL signs or steering onto the black prairie for a stunned hour of sleep.

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.

Alex here. (...) Ron, I really enjoy all the help you have given me and the times we spent together. I hope that you will not be too depressed by our parting. It may be a very long time before we see each other again. But providing that I get through the Alaskan Deal in one piece you will be hearing form me again in the future. I’d like to repeat the advice I gave you before, in that I think you really should make a radical change in your lifestyle and begin to boldly do things which you may previously never have thought of doing or been to hesitant to attempt. So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one piece of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun. (...) Once you become accustomed to such a life you will see its full meaning and its incredible beauty. (...) Don’t settle down and sit in one place. Move around, be nomadic, make each day a new horizon. (...) You are wrong if you think joy emanates only or principally from human relationships. God has placed it all around us. It is in everything and anything we might experience. We just have to have the courage to turn against our habitual lifestyle and engage in unconventional living. Ron, I really hope that as soon as you can you will get out of Salton City, put a little camper on the back of your pickup, and start seeing some of the great work that God has done here in the American West. you will see things and meet people and there is much to learn from them. And you must do it economy style, no motels, do your own cooking, as a general rule spend as little as possible and you will enjoy it much more immensely. I hope that the next time I see you, you will be a new man with a vast array of new adventures and experiences behind you. Don’t hesitate or allow yourself to make excuses. Just get out and do it. Just get out and do it. You will be very, very glad that you did. Take care Ron, Alex

Thrasher" They were hiding behind hay bales, They were planting in the full moon They had given all they had for something new But the light of day was on them, They could see the thrashers coming And the water shone like diamonds in the dew. And I was just getting up, hit the road before it's light Trying to catch an hour on the sun When I saw those thrashers rolling by, Looking more than two lanes wide I was feelin' like my day had just begun. Where the eagle glides ascending There's an ancient river bending Down the timeless gorge of changes Where sleeplessness awaits I searched out my companions, Who were lost in crystal canyons When the aimless blade of science Slashed the pearly gates. It was then I knew I'd had enough, Burned my credit card for fuel Headed out to where the pavement turns to sand With a one-way ticket to the land of truth And my suitcase in my hand How I lost my friends I still don't understand. They had the best selection, They were poisoned with protection There was nothing that they needed, Nothing left to find They were lost in rock formations Or became park bench mutations On the sidewalks and in the stations They were waiting, waiting. So I got bored and left them there, They were just deadweight to me Better down the road without that load Brings back the time when I was eight or nine I was watchin' my mama's T.V., It was that great Grand Canyon rescue episode. Where the vulture glides descending On an asphalt highway bending Thru libraries and museums, galaxies and stars Down the windy halls of friendship To the rose clipped by the bullwhip The motel of lost companions Waits with heated pool and bar. But me I'm not stopping there, Got my own row left to hoe Just another line in the field of time When the thrasher comes, I'll be stuck in the sun Like the dinosaurs in shrines But I'll know the time has come To give what's mine. Neil Young, Rust Never Sleeps (1979)

The wall decorations were dusty metal lobsters and faded pictures of ships. The bedspread had cigarette burns. Inside the nightstand drawer were a complimentary pen and three postcards. “Vacation Dreams Begin at the Coastal Dreams Motel.” I went out to the machine and got a soda. The sun was going down; the sky was orange and pink.