Quotes from I Hunt Killers

“You won't even know you've crossed the line until it's way back in your rearview mirror.”
― Barry Lyga, quote from I Hunt Killers

“This is why I forgive, but I don't forget. When you forget someone, the forgiveness doesn't mean anything anymore.”
― Barry Lyga, quote from I Hunt Killers

“Medicine cabinets are dangerous. Those doors, man. They'll just spring on you like a ninja.”
― Barry Lyga, quote from I Hunt Killers

“...called nine-one-one," Howie was saying, "and then I heard something in the alleyway, so I went back there and" --Howie coughed-- "and valiantly attacked his knife with my guts, to no avail."

"Did you get a good look at him? Could you describe him?"

Howie smiled wanly. "Yeah. He was about yay long" --he held up his hands, four inches apart-- "thin, made of steel. Pointy. Sharp.”
― Barry Lyga, quote from I Hunt Killers

“[She] was made up of skin and bones and hate and crazy, and hate and crazy don't weigh anything.”
― Barry Lyga, quote from I Hunt Killers

“What if a puppet could cut its own strings, and in that act of defiance and strength of will become truly alive? Become is own puppetmaster?”
― Barry Lyga, quote from I Hunt Killers

“It's like this," he'd explained once to Connie. "If someone gave you a single rose, you'd be happy, right?"
"Okay," he went on, "Now imagine someone gives you ten thousand roses."
"That is a whole lotta roses," she said. "That's too much."
"Right. Too much. But more than that, it makes each individual rose much less special, right? It makes it hard to pick one out and say, 'That's the good one.' And it makes you want to just get rid of them all because none of them seem special now."
Connie had narrowed her eyes. "Are you saying when you're at school you just want to get rid of everyone?”
― Barry Lyga, quote from I Hunt Killers

“Jazz hadn't given her many details of exactly what life in the Dent house had been like, but he'd told her enough that she knew it wasn't hearts and flowers. Well, except for the occasional heart cut from a chest. And the kind of flowers you send to funerals.”
― Barry Lyga, quote from I Hunt Killers

“What was the opposite of linkage blindness? What described being certain of something without any kind of evidence?

...The term was faith.”
― Barry Lyga, quote from I Hunt Killers

“Jazz spent a chunk of the day fantasizing about ways to kill his grandmother, plotting them and planning them in the most excruciating, gruesome detail his imagination would allow. It turned out his imagination allowed quite a bit. He spent the rest of the day convincing himself--over and over--not to do it.”
― Barry Lyga, quote from I Hunt Killers

“He moved to run a hand through her cornrows, then pulled back remembering the one time he's tried that-Connie had lectured him on the Eleventh Commandment: Thou shalt not touch thy black girlfriend's hair. Ever.”
― Barry Lyga, quote from I Hunt Killers

“And my parents made me want i am. So what? We get stuff from our parents, but we also get stuff from the world around us. From people around us. And at the end of the day, we're us.”
― Barry Lyga, quote from I Hunt Killers

“And what? Accidentally cuts off three fingers postmortem? 'Oops, oh, no, my girlfriend just died! Clumsy me, in trying to perform CPR, I chopped off some fingers! Guess I'll just take them with me.... Oh, darn, where did that middle finger go?”
― Barry Lyga, quote from I Hunt Killers

“And Jazz snapped.
He didn't snap the way a normal person might snap. A normal person would fling his arms around and stomp his feet and rant at the top of his lungs, bellowing to the sky. There might be tears, from a normal person.
Jazz went quiet. He darted out one hand and grabbed the wrist of the paramedic who had been trying to cuff him and pulled the man close, holding his gaze.
In a moment, he channeled every last drop of (his father).
"Who am I? I'll tell you. I'm the local psychopath, and if you don't save my best friend's life, I will hunt down everyone you've ever cared about in your life and make you watch while I do things to them that will have you begging me to kill them. That's who I am.”
― Barry Lyga, quote from I Hunt Killers

“I’m a complicated man, with complicated taste buds.”
― Barry Lyga, quote from I Hunt Killers

“Are you stalking me, Mr. Fulton?" The idea both amused and horrified Jazz.”
― Barry Lyga, quote from I Hunt Killers

“We humans have the capacity to wreak horrors on each other. But we also have the capacity to survive those horrors.”
― Barry Lyga, quote from I Hunt Killers

“A river of images and thoughts and feelings, dirtied and polluted so that no one could drink from it without gagging.”
― Barry Lyga, quote from I Hunt Killers

“Fear can keep you alive. The trick is not to let it overwhelm you. Not to let it rule you. If you’re afraid, that’s the universe trying to tell you something. Get away. Don’t run; don’t panic. Just pick up and walk out, calm as you please. Panic makes you stupid.”
― Barry Lyga, quote from I Hunt Killers

“Not according to this," Jazz said, taking the report. "No evidence of sexual activity or anything like it."
"Well, there's that," Howie said, sounding relieved. Jazz wondered at that - was it really so much better to be unmolested, but still murdered in a horrible fashion? To die in pain and terror, stripped, left in a field, your fingers cut off? But as long as you weren't raped, well, that was alright, then? Did it really matter at that point?”
― Barry Lyga, quote from I Hunt Killers

“Sometimes hope could be the most frightening thing in the world.”
― Barry Lyga, quote from I Hunt Killers

“They put on fresh gloves and got back to business. Jazz wiped up the blood splatters in the freezer and tossed the tissues in with Howie’s waste. It bothered him that he was leaving evidence behind without some sort of oxygenated bleach, those blood splatters would still show up under Luminol. Of course, the odds of anyone deciding to spray down the morgue freezer and switch on an ultraviolet light were pretty minimal, so it’s not like it was evidence that anyone would ever find or use. Still: Billy Dent’s First Commandment was “Thou shalt not leave evidence.”
― Barry Lyga, quote from I Hunt Killers

“Sometimes I can't tell the difference between living and dead. Sometimes I look at a pretty little girlie and I think to myself, Is she a living, breathing thing? Or is she just a doll? Are those actualy tears she's crying? Are those real creams coming out of her mouth? And it's like a fog in my mind, like I get all confused and frustrated and mixed up, so I start doing things. Start small at first, like maybe with the ears or the lips or the toes. And then move on to the bigger things, and there's blood, so I keeping going and my hands are wet and my mouth is warm and I keep going and then something magical happens, Jasper. It's real magical and special and beautiful. See, they stop moving. They stop struggiling. All the fight just goes away and that's when it's all clear to me: She's dead. And if she's dead, then that means that she used to be alive. So then I know: This was a living one, a real one. And I feel good after that 'cause I figured it out.”
― Barry Lyga, quote from I Hunt Killers

“You know how that goes, G. William,” Jazz said lightly. “If you outlaw police scanners, only outlaws will have police scanners.”
― Barry Lyga, quote from I Hunt Killers

“He thought for a moment. About puppets.
About being controlled.
Everyone was controlled by something, the Impressionist knew. By a spouse. A parent. A boss. A friend. By one’s own impulses, be they dark or light.
Everyone was a puppet to something.
Most people just couldn’t see the strings, is all. And so they didn’t believe they were puppets in the first place.”
― Barry Lyga, quote from I Hunt Killers

“Can they, like get fingerprints from her neck? Can they catch the guy that way?”
“This guy isn’t an amateur. He probably used gloves.”
“How do you know he isn’t an amateur, Sherlock?”
“There’s bruising on the left-hand knuckles, and on the sides of both hands. Probably would be on the right-hand knuckles, too, if we had them.”
“She hit him,” Howie said. “She fought back.”
― Barry Lyga, quote from I Hunt Killers

“How do i know that what I see as blue and what you see as blue are the same thing?
Answer: We don't. We take it on faith.”
― Barry Lyga, quote from I Hunt Killers

“But Billy had done good deeds all the time. So had John Wayne Gacy, and dozens of others. It didn’t matter. It was all part of the disguise. Jazz realized that he couldn’t trust even his noblest impulses. They might not be genuine. They might just be camouflage.”
― Barry Lyga, quote from I Hunt Killers

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“I’ve got so much inside me I have no idea about. I’m like the mayor of a city I’ve never seen.”

He smiles at my phrasing. “If you knew the kind of little miracles happening every moment you breathe in, you wouldn’t be able to handle it. A valve could close and not open; an artery could split, you could die. At any moment. It’s nothing but miracles inside your tiny city.” He presses a kiss to my temple.

“Holy shit.” I clutch at him.

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There’s the longest pause. “I used to. Not so much anymore.”

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