Gillian Flynn

You can’t be as in love as we were and not have it invade your bone marrow. Our kind of love can go into remission, but it’s always waiting to return. Like the world’s sweetest cancer.

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. I can’t recall a single amazing thing I have seen firsthand that I didn’t immediately reference to a movie or TV show. A fucking commercial.

She already has the righteous, eye-rolling cadence of a conspiracy crackpot. She might as well wrap her head in foil.

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.”)

I am fat with love! Husky with ardor! Morbidly obese with devotion! A happy, busy bumblebee of marital enthusiasm. I positively hum around him, fussing and fixing. I have become a strange thing. I have become a wife. I find myself steering the ship of conversations—bulkily, unnaturally—just so I can say his name aloud. I have become a wife, I have become a bore, I have been asked to forfeit my Independent Young Feminist card. I don’t care.

I’m so much happier now that I’m dead.

The media has saturated the legal environment. With the Internet, Facebook, YouTube, there’s no such thing as an unbiased jury anymore. No clean slate. Eighty, ninety percent of the case is decided before you get in the court room. So why not use it—control the story.

I can see people milling about under the fluorescent lights. It’s the kind of place where people mill about.

…soldiers on the battlefield of consumerism, armed with vinyl-covered checkbooks and quilted handbags.

I don’t want to be married to a woman like you. I want to be married to a normal person.

Sleep is like a cat: it only comes to you if you ignore it.

“My gosh, Nick, why are you so wonderful to me?

He was supposed to say: You deserve it. I love you.

But he said, “Because I feel sorry for you.”

“Why?”

“Because every morning you have to wake up and be you.”