Quotes from Gillian Flynn

I was the embodiment of every writer's worst fear: a cliché.

them since they were built. The old people sit, gray and pudding-like

My morning breath warmed the pillow, and I changed the subject in my mind. Today was not a day for second-guessing or regret, it was a day for doing.

You have to admit you're a jerk and that everything was all your fault." "So, like, what men are supposed to do in general," I said.

Fact: Somewhere around 2 a.m. on January 3, 1985, a person or persons killed three members of the Day family in their farmhouse in Kinnakee, Kansas. The deceased include Michelle Day, age ten; Debby Day, age nine; and the family matriarch, Patty Day, age thirty-two. Michelle Day was strangled; Debby Day died of axe wounds, Patty Day of two shotgun wounds, axe wounds, and deep cuts from a Bowie hunting knife.

I don't feel like a person at all: I am something to be loaded and unloaded, like a sofa or a cuckoo clock. I am something to be tossed into a junkyard, thrown into the river, if necessary. I don't feel real anymore. I feel like I could disappear.

She took my hand and offered me a pure, sweet smile, petting my palm, which might have felt better than any touch I'd ever experienced.

From the pay phone at the library I dialed the number on the Missing poster. An elderly female voice identified it as the Natalie Keene Hotline, but in the background I could hear a dishwasher churning. The woman informed me that so far as she knew, the search was still going in the North Woods. Those who wanted to help should report to the main access road and bring their own water. Record temperatures were expected.

Uma cidade tão sufocante e pequena que todos os dias você esbarrava em pessoas que odiava. Pessoas que sabiam coisas sobre você. É o tipo de lugar que deixa marcas.

I am overachieving at aimlessness, I am a type-A, alpha-girl lollygagger, the leader of a gang of heartbroken kids, running wild across this lonely strip of amusements, each of us smarting from the betrayals of a loved one.

Pero no lo dije en voz alta; a menudo no digo las cosas en voz alta, ni siquiera cuando debería. Contengo y compartimiento hasta un extremo preocupante: en el sótano de mi vientre hay cientos de botellas llenas de ira, desespero, temor, pero uno nunca lo adivinaría al verme.

They would not be good for marital advice: They are soul mates, remember? They are all peaks, no valleys – a single, infinite burst of marital ecstasy. I can't tell them I am screwing up the one thing I have left: my marriage. They'd somehow write another book, a fictional rebuke in which Amazing Amy celebrated the most fantastic, fulfilling, bump-free little marriage ever . . . because she put her mind to it.

As a child, I don't remember ever telling Adora my favorite color, or what I'd like to name my daughter when I grew up. I don't think she ever knew my favorite dish, and I certainly never padded down to her room in the early-morning hours, teary from nightmares. I always feel sad for the girl that I was, because it never occurred to me that my mother might comfort me. She has never told me she loved me, and I never assumed she did.

And yet, I felt it too: the house. Not necessarily malevolent, but...mindful. I could feel it studying me, does that make sense? It crowded me. One day, I was wiping down the floorboards, and suffered a sudden, slicing pain in my middle finger - as if I'd been bitten - and when I pulled it away, I was bleeding. I wrapped my finger tightly in one of my spare rags and watched the blood seep through. And I felt like something in the house was pleased.

There are variations to the window dressing, but believe me, he wants Cool Girl, who is basically the girl who likes every fucking thing he likes and doesn't ever complain. (How do you know you're not Cool Girl? Because he says things like: "I like strong women." If he says that to you, he will at some point fuck someone else. Because "I like strong women" is code for "I hate strong women.

Kansas City, Missouri, not Kansas City, Kansas. There's a difference.

this town is sometimes too much, so desperate and so in denial.

I wonder what it feels like to be a woman whose Christmas present must be bought in cash. Liberating.

Normally, Richard was the kind of guy I disliked, someone born and raised plush: looks, charm, smarts, probably money. These men were never very interesting to me; they had no edges, and they were usually cowards. They instinctively fled any situation that might cause them embarrassment or awkwardness.

This is Tyler,' she said. 'He grew up in Tennessee, he has a horse named Custard—' 'Custer,' Tyler said.

But I do like a certain standard of living—I think it's fair to say the garbage shouldn't literally overflow, and the plates shouldn't sit in the sink for a week with smears of bean burrito dried on them. That's just being a good grown-up roommate. And Nick's not doing anything anymore, so I have to nag, and it pisses me off:

neighbors, I ran errands for Mo's

I have a meanness inside me, real as an organ. Slit me at my belly and it might slide out, meaty and dark, drop on the floor so you could stomp on it. It's the Day blood. Something's wrong with it.

He has given me exactly ten Fritos and then secreted away the bag. He doesn't like the smell; it offends him, he says, but what he really doesn't like is my weight.