Joe Goldberg quotes from You

Joe

[internally, when he sees Beck for the first time] Well, hello there. Who are you?

Joe

I'm not a "maybe." I'm the one.

Joe

Sometimes I swear, I'm the only real feminist you know.

Joe

Masturbation saves the day for now.

Joe

[internally] Aconite, when injected directly, burns as it moves through the system to the heart. Think less slow paralysis, more total fսcking agony. I'm sorry it had to come to this.

Joe

Did you really think that I wouldn't start to wonder... what you were growing in the garden? Wolf's-bane. A paralytic.

Joe

It slows the heart. So I Googled antidotes. Turns out, I needed biohacking. Adrenaline. And who doesn't have that around here, right? A little voice in my head told me to take it. Before you played your hand.

Joe

You did this to yourself. And the hardest part was making the dose, because I couldn't lie to myself. It had to be enough. I had to finally stop you.

Joe

Did Beck tell you I started jogging?

Fun! Runner's high is better than sex. And for some, may last longer. [referring to Joe and Beck's first sex encounter]

Joe

[internally] Touché, bitch.

Joe

[internally] Well. Hello, there. Who are you? You've got that hoodie. You don't like to be stared at. But your legs are bare. You like a little attention. Okay, I'll bite.

Candace

Hey, bunny.

Joe

Candace. You're...

Candace

Alive. Yeah. So uh... I think we have some unfinished business to talk about.

You gotta meet my girl, Amy. Amy, come here.

Candace

Hi there.

[introducing them] Will Bettelheim, Amy Adam.

Candace

Nice to meet you.

Joe

[internally] It can't be. Am I hallucinating? [shakes hands with Candace] This is her hand, this is real. Candace is here.

Candace

Will Bettelheim... What a great name. Almost sounds made up.

Joe

[internally] Is she trying to spar with me? [out loud] That's funny, I was just thinking, "Amy Adam." How totally ungoogleable.

Joe

[internally] This is a game to her. She's enjoying this.

Love

[to Candace] I'm so happy to see you again. [hugs her]

Joe

[internally] She's crazy, Love!

Love

I'm also so hungry I could eat my own hand, so let's...

Candace

Oh, no, don't worry. Just eat mine. [they laugh]

Joe

[internally] Like the kids say, "Fuck my life."

Joe

I got a nanny cam in my apartment when my crazy ex... broke in. I was gonna ask if you wanted to have dinner tonight! Until I saw you'd already been by. And found some keys.

Joe

Give me the phone. Don't make me take it.

What are you gonna do? I will scream.

Joe

It's soundproof.

Love

You act all pure and noble, like you have reasons for what you do when you do it. But when I do it, I'm crazy, right? I'm some manic nutjob. "But, oh, wait! Oh, wait! She's a mom now, I guess I can't slit her throat." He... is the only reason I'm alive. How do you think that makes me feel? I can't trust you.

Joe

I can't trust you either! I was trying to... Yes, yes. Yes, I did things. But I've worked hard to be better and I am not that person anymore. But now, I will be burying bodies until I'm 70 years old! Because if I'm not 100% into you all of the time, you will keep killing people!

Love

If I'm not enough for you, you'll kill me.

Love

Friends and neighbors... I'd like to thank you for welcoming my family with open arms, but... you didn't. I moved to the suburbs because I bought into the dream. Community, prosperity, and most of all, safety. But I never felt safe here. Judged from day one, for my past, my body, how I was raising my child. If I wasn't perfect, I would lose it all. A game so rigged, it could only exist in a world that hates women, especially mothers. But what choice did I have? So I played. And I realized your fence, your doorbell cam, you tell yourself you're keeping your family safe, but it's a lie. You're too afraid to do what you need to do to really protect your own. I am not a coward. I do what must be done to protect my family. I killed the adulterer next door. I framed the anti-vaxxer who sickened my child, hunted down the reporter who threatened us. I trapped the couple who tried to sabotage us. Forced them to really see each other. I forced my husband to play along. But in the end, he was a coward too. And when I realized he had grown to hate me, I killed him. Better than a messy divorce. Everybody keeps their dignity. When the shock wears off... and you feel safe jogging in your expensive athleisure again...

...remember, you can get off the hamster wheel at any time.

Joe

You just have to be willing to burn it to the ground.

Rhys Montrose

What could possibly be that funny? [sits next to Joe]

Joe

[internally] Rhys Montrose. What's he doing here?

Joe

Good book.

Joe

[internally] Oh, no. I sound drunk.

Rhys

So you're the new one. Mal unfailingly adopts you lads, back since the dormitory at...

Joe

[internally] Oxford, right. They were all there together. The book is about how he was born into poverty, raised by an unstable single mom, uncomfortably relatable, and he was a mess, then found out he's the son of a duke, cleaned up, went to Oxford, and became the author of honestly one of the best memoirs I've ever read.

Rhys

Quite a thing, that. Tell no one your sordid life story for 30 years, then write it down, suddenly millions know your every shame.

Joe

For what it's worth, I didn't find your book sordid.

Rhys

Fellow man with a shit childhood, then?

Rhys

I see. A true shit childhood. Pleasure to meet you, brother in arms. The thing about getting money when you had none, you never really feel you have it. And all the people who always did...

Joe

Another species.

Rhys

Exactly.

Joe

[internally] I actually don't hate him, yet.

Rhys

They're dancing while the world burns. Barely notice it's even burning. Why would they? Their weather's just right.