Even if you’re the one to build the monster, you’re never going to be able to control it. It’ll gladly eat you alive and floss with your bones.
-- Margaret Ives (chapter 7)

Importance: Margaret’s darkly humorous metaphor about her family’s downfall reflects both her cynicism and self-awareness. It captures how the Ives family’s manipulation of public image ultimately devoured them, setting up the tension between personal truth and public myth that drives Alice’s project.

Because it gives me peace. Remembering my decisions do not make much of a difference in the end.
-- Margaret Ives (chapter 12)

Importance: Margaret’s statement expresses fatalism disguised as acceptance. Her peace depends on erasing responsibility, transforming surrender into survival. The line encapsulates her need to frame powerlessness as serenity. Her words suggest that letting go of agency is the only way she can coexist with her past.

There’s an old saying about stories, and how there...
-- Alice (chapter 1)