Top 4 Sharp Objects quotes
“At home that night, I slipped a finger under my panties and masturbated for the first time, panting and sick.”
Chapter 1, Camille
The first chapter ends with Camille discussing how her sexual awakening began after she visited the hunting shed of one of her neighbors. The smells and colors of slaughtered animals in the shed become associated with sex for her. This insight into Camille’s maturation indicates that there are darker undercurrents within her psyche that haven’t yet been revealed.
“My skin, you see, screams. It’s covered with words—cook, cupcake, kitty, curls—as if a knife-wielding first-grader learned to write on my flesh. I sometimes, but only sometimes, laugh.”
Chapter 4, Camille
Camille’s body is covered with scars of scribbled words that she has cut into her skin. She explains her cutting as a compulsion and this is further evidenced in the fact that she has but a small space left on her body where nothing has been written.
“Then she opened her mouth just slightly, took a tiny bit of flesh between her teeth, and gave it a little bite. The baby wailed. The blotch faded as Adora snuggled the child, and told the other women it was just being fussy.”
Chapter 7, Camille
Camille begins to suspect her mother’s involvement in the murders as she learns that she has shared a relationship with both of her victims. She remembers a disturbing incident in which her mother had knowingly hurt a child in secrecy to elicit a reaction from the child.
“Someday I’ll carve my name there.”
Chapter 10, Adora
Adora reveals that her relationship with Camille had always been loveless because Camille refused to be mothered when she was sick. Camille is distraught about finally discovering that the woman who had brought her into the world did not love her. She bears her mother’s hatred with a stoic attitude, but before they part for the night. Adora horrifies her daughter by revealing that she knew Camille had left a part of her skin unblemished, and that she meant to carve her name there.
