Riley Sager > Quotes

“Sometimes the only way out is through.”
― Riley Sager, The Last Time I Lied

“Never take anything you haven’t earned, my father used to say. You always end up paying for it one way or another.”
― Riley Sager, Lock Every Door

“Every so often, life offers you a reset button. When it does, you need to press it as hard as you can.”
― Riley Sager, Lock Every Door

“Grief is tricky like that. It can lie low for hours, long enough for magical thinking to take hold. Then, when you’re good and vulnerable, it will leap out at you like a fun-house skeleton, and all the pain you thought was gone comes roaring back.”
― Riley Sager, Home Before Dark

“That’s not your choice. It’s already been decided for you. You can’t change what’s happened. The only thing you can control is how you deal with it.”
― Riley Sager, Final Girls

“One time is an anomaly. Two times is a coincidence. Three times is proof.”
― Riley Sager, Lock Every Door

“Because here’s the thing about being poor—most people don’t understand it unless they’ve been there themselves. They don’t know what a fragile balancing act it is to stay afloat and that if, God forbid, you momentarily slip underwater, how hard it is to resurface.”
― Riley Sager, Lock Every Door

“I'm a fucking final girl”
― Riley Sager, Final Girls

“You're never alone when there's a book,' she used to say. 'Never ever.”
― Riley Sager, The Only One Left

“Everything is a game, Em. Whether you know it or not. Which means that sometimes a lie is more than just a lie. Sometimes it's the only way to win.”
― Riley Sager, The Last Time I Lied

“Every house has a story to tell.”
― Riley Sager, Home Before Dark

“Even a prison becomes comforting if it’s the only thing you know.”
― Riley Sager, The Only One Left

“Omnes vulnerant; ultima necat. I remember the phrase from high school Latin class, although not because I excelled at the language. In fact, I was terrible at it. I remember only because it sent a chill through me when I first learned what it meant. All hours wound; the last one kills.”
― Riley Sager, The Last Time I Lied

“Meeting people is easy. Keeping them around is the hard part.”
― Riley Sager, Survive the Night

“You can’t change what’s happened. The only thing you can control is how you deal with it.”
― Riley Sager, Final Girls

“Sometimes you can’t simultaneously be smart, brave, and careful. Sometimes you need to choose one.”
― Riley Sager, Survive the Night

“She's fascinating in the same way tornadoes are fascinating. You want to see how much they're going to spin.”
― Riley Sager, Lock Every Door

“Pain equals clarity. Clarity equals survival.”
― Riley Sager, Lock Every Door

“My future is quite literally a blank canvas, waiting for me to fill it.”
― Riley Sager, The Last Time I Lied

“Women need to do that, you know. Look out for each other. There’s a special place in hell for those who don’t.”
― Riley Sager, Survive the Night

“there’s no such thing as happily ever after. There’s only happy for a short period of time before everything falls apart.”
― Riley Sager, The House Across the Lake

“Boys can break your heart and betray you, but not in the same stinging way girls can.”
― Riley Sager, The Last Time I Lied

“I try to pretend I'm not as lonely as I feel.”
― Riley Sager, Lock Every Door

“Because here’s the thing about details—they can also be a distraction. Add too many and it obscures the brutal truth about a situation. They become the gaudy necklace that hides the tracheotomy scar.”
― Riley Sager, Final Girls

“But that’s not what you’re most curious about, is it? You want to know if I’m as evil as everyone says I am. The answer is no. And yes.”
― Riley Sager, The Only One Left

“That can be said of certain places. The closer you get to them, the uglier they become.”
― Riley Sager, Lock Every Door

“What none of them understand is that the point of the game isn’t to fool others with a lie. The goal is to trick them by telling the truth.”
― Riley Sager, The Last Time I Lied

“You’re never alone when there’s a book nearby”
― Riley Sager, The Only One Left

“No one tells women that none of it is their fault. That the blame falls squarely on the awful men who do terrible things and the fucked-up society that raises them, molds them, makes excuses for them. People don’t want to admit that there are monsters in their midst, so the monsters continue to roam free and the cycle of violence and blame continues.”
― Riley Sager, Survive the Night

“When you stare into the abyss, the abyss also stares into you.”
― Riley Sager, Home Before Dark