Quotes from Gregg Olsen

She seems to inhabit the fringes of her own world. As if Frank rules their world and allows her to coexist with him as long as she keeps the house clean and does his laundry.

Telling someone that they'll be all right," Nora told me over coffee one time, "is the last thing anyone wants to hear. Sure, things will get better. Time will diminish the pain. But things will never be all right.

Sometimes hitting the pause button on a life beginning to spiral out of control by moving to a new house can actually reset the situation and make things better.

There was also a collection of outbuildings. Most of them were small—a chicken coop, a tool shed, a dilapidated barn, a well house, and a pump house affirmed that the place was indeed a mini-farm. The largest of the structures was a pole building the size of a suburban garage, organized with a workbench, storage racks, a pantry, and a freezer. Just steps from the back door, the aluminum building provided much-needed space for all of the things that wouldn't fit in the house

a negative soul who made a point of slicing the joy from any possible moment with her razor of a tongue.

Les came to know something that few understood in the late sixties and seventies: no one can help a troubled person who doesn't think they need it.

It was that she knew that in a very real way the situation was hopeless.

no one can help a troubled person who doesn't think they need it. Indeed

It's hard to be genuinely enthusiastic if you can never have what's in front of you—when it comes so easily to others.

Words didn't have any impact on Albert Haight. He saw them as obstacles to dodge or bounce from his head like a soccer ball. To the gut. To where it hurts. "Don't do this," she said

No-Doz and Vivarin to stay awake.

in, and while she'd been

bullshit." "I wish. I just got off the phone with her so-called lawyer—Deke Meyer. They want to work out a deal so that Mimi can be

Jesus, some thought, would get a new lawyer.

The funny thing I learned about giving is that sometimes the more you give, the more recipients demand. It's like carbo-loading for a marathon. You eat for a purpose, but you find that you want it even more after the race is over.

and doesn't know quite what to do with it. I dig in.

The scene was shocking, a horror show, and incongruous with the pretty bucolic setting of the country. Apple trees. Horses in the pasture. And a naked woman bound to a board and being dunked repeatedly.

When you have something that you carry inside and never talk about, you don't ever unleash it on a stranger. And since you've never talked about it, you don't know even how to really frame your thoughts. You fear that your words will tumble out in a way that will only make things worse.

Kathy," she repeated. "Can you hear me?" Kathy nodded and her eyes rolled backward.

only with hard work and extreme fortitude could one escape the road map created by where they are born, whom they are born to.

Eventually fired for good, a stay-at-home Shelly brought no benefits to the new household whatsoever. She didn't cook. She didn't clean. All she seemed to like to do was lie around and tell everyone in earshot what they should be doing, though she was never shy about telling others what she deserved, and how they should help her get whatever she wanted.

Shelly wanted to control people. She loathed any scenario in which she wasn't the center square. It was like their family was a cult of some kind: Nikki had escaped first, then Sami. The world outside of Raymond was a more beautiful—and happy—place than Tori had ever thought possible.

What a pair! I almost feel sorry for the people of Hawaii. Those two are going to be the most annoying thing that happened there since that moron sounded the false missile-attack alarm.

Investigators, however, understood that 10 percent of a nightmare is still a nightmare.