Quotes by Gillian Flynn

Writers (my kind of writers: aspiring novelists, ruminative thinkers, people whose brains dont work quick enough to blog or link or tweet, basically old, stubborn blowhards) were through. We were like womens hat makers or buggy-whip manufacturers: Our time was done.

New York was packed with writers, real writers, because there were magazines, real magazines, loads of them. This was back when the Internet was still some exotic pet kept in the corner of the publishing world--throw some kibble at it, watch it dance on its little leash, oh quite cute, it definitely wont kill us in the night.

Bang bang bang. I understand now why so many horror movies use that device-the mysterious knock on the door-because it has the weight of a nightmare. You dont know whats out there, yet you know youll open it. Youll think what I think: No one bad ever knocks.

I still believed hed love me again somehow, love me that intense, thick way he did, the way that made everything good.

...my father, [was] a mid-level phonecompany manager who treated my mother at best like an incompetent employee. At worst? He never beat her, but his pure, inarticulate fury would fill the house for days, weeks, at a time, making the air humid, hard to breathe, my father stalking around with his lower jaw jutting out, giving him the look of a wounded, vengeful boxer, grinding his teeth so loud you could hear it across the room ... Im sure he told himself: I never hit her. Im sure because of this technicality he never saw himself as an abuser. But he turned our family life into an endless road trip with bad directions and a rage-clenched driver, a vacation that never got a chance to be fun.

Amy! My God! My God! My darling! and buried my face in her neck, my arms wrapped tight around her, and let the cameras get their fifteen seconds, and I whispered deep inside her ear, You fucking bitch.

All of a sudden you see reading in bed and waffles on Sunday and laughing at nothing and his mouth on yours. And its so far beyond fine that you know you can never go back to fine.

We just want you to be happy. Rand and Marybeth said that all the time, but they never explained how.

I am smiling a big adopted-orphan smile as I write this ... I still love scribbling the word - WRITER - any time on a form, questionnaire, document asks for my occupation. Fine, I write personality quizzes, I dont write about the Great Issues of the Day, but I think its fair to say I am a writer ... (Adopted-orphan smile, I mean, thats not bad, come on.)

You can like an immoral character because she’s interesting, not because you want to have her over for dinner.

I didnt think past the first step of anything, that was the key. I drank a Coke and didnt worry about how to recycle the can or about the acid puddling in my belly, acid so powerful it could strip clean a penny. We went to a dumb movie and I didnt worry about the offensive sexism or the lack of minorities in meaningful roles. I didnt even worry about anything that came next. Nothing had consequence, I was living in the moment, and I could feel myself getting shallower and dumber. But also happy.

Soul mates. They really call themselves that, which makes sense, because I guess they are ... They have no harsh edges with each other, no spiny conflicts, they ride though life like conjoined jellyfish - expanding and contracting instinctively, filling each others spaces liquidly. Making it look easy.

I prepared to get out of bed, tossing the covers aside, the sheets dank-smelling, gray from my body. I wondered how long it had been since Id changed them. And then I wondered how often you were supposed to change them. These were the kinds of things you didnt learn. I changed bedclothes after sex, now, finally, and that I only learned a few years ago from a movie on TV: Glenn Close, some thriller, and shed just had sex and is changing the sheets and I cant remember the rest, because all I was thinking was: Oh, I guess people change sheets after they have sex. It made sense, but Id never thought of it. I was raised feral, and I mostly stayed that way.

... it’s a nice day’s work when you make a lot of people smile.

The one plentiful herds of magazine writers would continue to be culled - by the Internet, by the recession, by the American public, who would rather watch TV or play video games or electronically inform friends that, like, rain sucks! But theres no app for a bourbon buzz on a warm day in a cool, dark bar. The world will always want a drink.

Things might not be great, but things would be okay.

A child weaned on poison considers harm a comfort.

And I think, Im so fucking lonely. I go home and cry for a while. I am almost 32. Thats not old especially in New York. But the fact is it has been years since I even liked someone. So how likely is it Ill meet someone I love enough to marry? Im tired of not knowing who Ill be with, or if Ill be with anyone.

There will be days you wish you’d never done it. And thosewill be the good times, when it’s only days of regret and notmonths.

So are there any asshole guys here I can start dating? she says. Thats, like, my pattern.