Quotes from Gillian Flynn

Although watching her three children toddle to her, sleep-stained from their nap, rubbing their eyes while they make their way to Mama, little hands touching her knee or arm as if she were home base, as if they knew they were safe... it hurts me sometimes to watch.

I thought we would be the most perfect union: the happiest couple around. Not that love is a competition. But I don't understand the point of being together if you're not the happiest.

I went into Andie's bathroom, took a piss, looked at myself in the mirror, and made myself say it: You are a cheater. You have failed one of the most basic male tests. You are not a good man. And when that didn't bother me, I thought: You're really not a good man.

But I'm a romantic. In real life, if Nick had killed me, I think he would have just rolled my body into a trash bag and driven me to one of the landfills in the sixty-mile radius. Just dispose of me. He'd have even taken a few items with him – the broken toaster that's not worth fixing, a pile of old VHS tapes he's been meaning to toss – to make the trip efficient.

The Day women were the definition of mob mentality. And here they were on a farm with plenty of pitchforks. She

Nick's the kind of guy you can drink a beer with, the kind of guy who doesn't mind if you puke in his car. Nick!

The smart boys fuck like they're composing a piece of math rock: This hand strums around here, and then this finger offers a nice bass rhythm... I sound quite slutty, don't I?

It seemed to me that there was nothing new to be discovered ever again. Our society was utterly, ruinously derivative (although the word derivative as a criticism is itself derivative). We were the first human beings who would never see anything for the first time. We stare at the wonders of the world, dull-eyed, underwhelmed. Mona Lisa, the Pyramids, the Empire State Building. Jungle animals on attack, ancient icebergs collapsing, volcanoes erupting.

Once [the calves] were a year old, you started tiptoeing around them, you started looking at them sideways with disgust and embarrassment like a guest in your home who just farted.

they ride through life like conjoined jellyfish --- expanding and contracting instinctively, filling each others' spaces liquidly. Making it look easy, the soul-mate thing.

Ben saw the inside of that fridge, which had been packed with food the month before, and now just had beer and a big jar with one single pickle floating in it like a turd.

The funny thing, I guess, is that my husband ended up being the muse of a book about the worst marriage in the world, because if he hadn't consistently said, 'Don't censor yourself, don't worry about me' - if he'd been anxious and worried about it - then it would never have gotten written.

I feel like I need to give people a note with the book that says, 'I'm OK, no worries!'

Love should require both partners to be their very best at all times

Very quickly, I discovered I did not have what it takes to be a good crime reporter: I was too unassertive and a little bit wimpy. It was very clear that was not what I was going to do, but I loved journalism, and I'm the daughter of a film professor, and my mom taught reading.

The best crime reporters don't mind charging in - but they also know how to do it as decent human beings.

I grew up in the '80s where there's a lot of these kind of post-apocalyptic, post-comet, post-whatever it was, so that always captured my imagination a lot as a little kid, that idea of getting access to secret places and being able to roam around where you're not supposed to.

It's important to tell stories, and it's a worthwhile thing to do.

I love Robin Wright's character in 'House of Cards' because she's a bona fide villain. She's a not-nice person in a believable way; you can see her working in the world.

I had been laid off from 'Entertainment Weekly 'right before I started writing 'Gone Girl.'

People love talking, and I have never been a huge talker. I carry on an inner monologue, but the words often don't reach my lips.

I was always someone who wanted to write. I was a real shy, bookworm-ish kid, and I think my earliest stuff was fairly dark.

Even good characters have their dark sides, and I think it is important that women aren't seen as innately good.

I want books to give me insight into the way people's brains work and hearts work, and that's what engages me.