Amma Crellin and Camille Preaker: Functionally Dysfunctional Half-Siblings
I'm so happy with you! Amma laughed, her breath hot and sweetly boozy in my face.
You're like my soulmate.
You're like my sister, I said.
BLASPHEMY? Didn't care.
I love you! Amma screamed.
pp. 185, paperback edition of Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn
You're like my soulmate.
By August she was obsessed with female killers. Lucretia Borgia, Lizzie Borden, a woman in Florida who drowned her three daughters after a nervous breakdown. "I think they're special," Amma said defiantly.
pp. 244, paperback edition of Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn
"What if it's the opposite?" Amma whispered. "What if you hurt because it feels so good? Like you have a tingling, like someone left a switch on in your body. And nothing can turn the switch off except hurting? What does that mean?"
I pretended to be asleep. I pretended not to feel her fingers tracing vanish over and over on [my back].
pp. 188, paperback edition of Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn
Walking past Amma's room, I saw her sitting very properly on the edge of a rocking chair, reading a book called Greek Goddesses. Since I'd been here, she'd played at being Joan of Arc and Bluebeard's wife and Princess Diana - all martyrs, I realized. She'd find even unhealthier role models among the goddessses. I left her to it.
pp. 123, paperback edition of Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn
"Camille is my guest," Amma said mock haughtily. "Plus she could use a little sunshine. She's had a pretty shitty life. We have a dead sister just like John Keene. She's never dealt with it." She announced it as if she were helping break the ice between cocktail party guests: "David owns his own dry-goods store, James just returned from an assignment in France, and, oh, yes, Camille has never gotten over her dead sister. Can I refresh anyone's drink?"
pp. 179, paperback edition of Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn
"You're Camille. You're my half sister. Adora's first daughter, before Marian. You're Pre and I'm Post.
pp. 43, paperback edition of Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn
One ought to be both feared and loved, but as it is difficult for the two to go together, it is much safer to be feared than loved ― Niccolò Machiavelli
"Safer to be feared than loved," I said.
"Machiavelli," she crowed, and skipped about laughing - whether in a mocking gesture of her age or genuine youthful energy, I couldn't tell.
"How do you know that?" I was impressed, and liking her more every minute. A smart, fucked-up little girl. Sounded familiar.
"I know tons of things I shouldn't know," she said.
pp. 183, paperback edition of Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn
"Can I sleep over with you then?" She stood in the streetlight, her jean skirt hanging from her tiny hip bones, her halter askew and ripped. A smear of blood near her lips. Hopeful.
"Naw. Let's just sleep separate. We'll hang out tomorrow."
She said nothing, just turned and ran as fast as he could toward the house, her feet kicking up behind her like a cartoon colt's.
"Amma!" I called after. "Wait, you can sleep with me, okay?" I began running after her. Watching her through the drugs and the dark was like trying to track someone while looking backward in a mirror. I failed to realize her bouncing silhoutette had turned around, and that she was running to me. At me. She smacked into me headlong, her forehead clanging into my jaw, and we fell again, this time on the sidewalk.
pp. 186, paperback edition of Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn
She exhausted me. Amma was wildly needy and afire with anxiety - took to pacing like a caged wildcat as she fired angry questions at me.
pp. 244, paperback edition of Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn
“Am I good at caring for Amma because of kindness, or do I like caring for Amma because I have Adora’s sickness? I waver between the two. Especially at night, when my skin begins to pulse. Lately, I’ve been leaning toward kindness.”
paraphased from the book, page 252, paperback edition of Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn
“I tried hug therapy, a ridiculous program that instructed I clutch Amma to me and repeat I love you I love you I love you as she tried to wriggle away. Four times she broke free and called me a bitch, slammed her door. Fifth time we both started laughing.”
pp. 245, paperback edition of Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn