Quotes from Gillian Flynn

Millions of dollars later, and neither of them were happy. Money is wasted on the rich.

It was surprising that you could spend hours in the middle of the night pretending things were OK, and know in thirty seconds of daylight that that simply wasn't so.

To me, all that urgent hopefulness was more frightening than if I'd found a pile of skulls with hair still attached.

There were a lot of people who deserved a lesson, deserved to really understand, that nothing came easy, that most things were going to go sour.

I was lying in bed thinking about killing myself, a hobby of mine. Indulgent afternoon daydreaming: A shotgun, my mouth, a bang and my head jerking once, twice, blood on the wall. Spatter, splatter.

If you own a bar on your own, you're a player; if you own it with your beloved twin sister, you're– Irish.

Our kind of love can go into remission, but it's always waiting to return. Like the world sweetest cancer.

I can feel a better version of me somewhere in there—hidden behind a liver or attached to a bit of spleen

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

I heard you could do that—buy books by the yard, turn them into furniture. People are dumb. I'll never get over how dumb people are.

Libby wasn't a big talker - Michelle and Debby seemed to hog all her words. She made pronouncements: I like ponies. I hate spaghetti. I hate you. Like her mother, she had no poker face. No poker mood. It was all right there. When she wasn't angry or sad, she just didn't say much.

When we got home, she'd trail off to her room like an unfinished sentence, and I would sit outside with my face pressed against her door and replay the day in my head, searching for clues to what I'd done to displease her.

If you let a man cancel plans or decline to do things for you, you lose.

Guess what Jeff found in his cabin for me, Grete says, another book by the Martian Chronicle guy. Ray Bradburrow, Jeff says. Bradbury, I think. Yeah, right, Something Wicked This Way Comes, Grete says, It's good. She chirps the last bit as if that were all to say about a book. It's good or it's bad, I liked it or I didn't. No discussions of the writing, the themes, the nuances, the structure. Just good or bad - like a hot dog.

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 there's no app for a bourbon buzz on a warm day in a cool, dark bar. The world will always want a drink.

Instead of asking yourself what happened, just accept that it happened. Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the Serenity Prayer.

I had that overwhelming feeling I get when I'm about to give up on a plan, that big rush of air when I realize that my stroke of genius has flaws, and I don't have the brains or energy to fix them.

Dorothy has one of those kitten-in-a-tree posters-- Hang in There! She posts her poster with all sincerity. I like to picture her running into some self-impressed Williamsburg bitch, all Bettie Page bangs and pointy glasses who owns the same poster ironically. I'd like to listen to them try to negotiate each other. Ironic people always dissolve when confronted with earnestness. It's their Kryptonite.

He wears his cockiness like an ironic T-shirt, but it fits him better.

You know how, in court, they talk about the CSI effect? Like, everyone on the jury has watched so much CSI that they believe science can prove anything? Yeah. Well, I think there's an Evil Husband effect. Everyone has seen too many true-crime shows where the husband is always, always the killer, so people automatically assume the husband's the bad guy.

In truth, I wanted her to read my mind so I didn't have to stoop to the womanly art of articulation. I was sometimes as guilty of playing the figure-me-out game as Amy was.

I won't blame Nick. I don't blame Nick. I refuse - refuse! - to turn into some pert-mouthed, strident angry-girl. I made two promises to myself when I married Nick. One: no dancing-monkey demands. Two: I would never, ever say, Sure, that's fine by me (if you want to stay out later, if you want to do a boys' weekend, if you want to do something you want to do) and then punish him for doing what I said was fine by me. I worry I am coming perilously close to violating both of those promises.

So let everyone take sides. Team Nick, Team Amy. Turn it into even more of a game: Sell some fucking T-shirts.

We had spent years battling for control of our marriage, of our love story, our life story. I had been thoroughly, finally outplayed. I created a manuscript, and she created a life.