Top 350 Gillian Flynn Quotes (2025 Update)
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151. “Thirteen years old, I thought to myself, but I felt a spear of admiration for the girl. When I’d been sad, I hurt myself. Amma hurt other people. When I’d wanted attention, I’d submitted myself to boys: Do what you want; just like me. Amma’s sexual offerings seemed a form of aggression. Long skinny legs and slim wrists and high, babied voice, all aimed like a gun. Do what I want; I might like you.”

— Gillian Flynn

152. “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.”

— Gillian Flynn

153. “I always feel sad for the girl that i was, because it never occurred to me that my mother might comfort me.”

— Gillian Flynn

154. “Thank you, Gillian Flynn, for quoting The Sure Thing- “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!”

— Gillian Flynn

155. “He was one of those guys who’d pronounce I’m a hugger as he came at you, neglecting to ask if the feeling was mutual.”

— Gillian Flynn

156. “Can you imagine, finally showing your true self to your spouse, your soul mate, and having him not like you?”

— Gillian Flynn

157. “I am a liar and a thief. Don’t let me into your house, and if you do, don’t leave me alone. I take things. You can catch me with your string of fine pearls clickering in my greedy little paws, and I’ll tell you they reminded me of my mother’s and I just had to touch them, just for a second, and I’m so sorry, I don’t know what came over me. My mom never owned any jewelry that didn’t turn her skin green, but you won’t know that. And I’ll still swipe the pearls when you’re not looking.”

— Gillian Flynn

158. “I’m all for whatever transitions the book properly to a movie.”

— Gillian Flynn

159. “Looking at my smarmy grin, my hooded eyes, I thought, I would hate this guy.”

— Gillian Flynn

160. “I’m here, I said, and it felt shockingly comforting, those words. When I’m panicked, I say them aloud to myself. I’m here. I don’t usually feel that I am. I feel like a warm gust of wind could exhale my way and I’d be disappeared forever, not even a sliver of fingernail left behind. On some days, I find this thought calming; on others it chills me.”

— Gillian Flynn

161. “I’ve always been partial to the image of liquor as lubrication, a layer of protection from all the sharp thoughts in your head.”

— Gillian Flynn

162. “I lack formal education. So I’m left with the feeling that I’m smarter than everyone around me but that if I ever got around really smart people – people who went to universities and drank wine and spoke Latin – that they’d be bored as hell by me. It’s a lonely way to go through life.”

— Gillian Flynn

163. “How confusing to live in the shadow of a shadow.”

— Gillian Flynn

164. “It makes me think that everyone is very wrong, that love should have many conditions. Love should require both partners to be their very best at all times. Unconditional love is an undisciplined love, and as we all have seen, undisciplined love is disastrous.”

— Gillian Flynn

165. “Today I like my first ladies with a little bite.”

— Gillian Flynn

166. “You know how people sometimes say they have to hurt because if they don’t, they’re so numb they won’t feel anything?”

— Gillian Flynn

167. “He promised to take care of me, and yet I feel afraid. I feel like something is going wrong, very wrong, and that it will get even worse.”

— Gillian Flynn

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

— Gillian Flynn

169. “I think mystery writers and thriller writers – whatever genre you want to call it – are taking on some of the biggest, most interesting kind of socioeconomic issues around in a really interesting, compelling way.”

— Gillian Flynn

170. “Never leave a message for someone you really want to reach. No, you keep phoning and phoning until someone picks up – out of anger or curiosity or fear – and then you blurt out whatever words will keep them on the line. I.”

— Gillian Flynn

171. “There might be a space too, for this. The feel of killing, there might be an empty spot just waiting to be filled.”

— Gillian Flynn

172. “When you finally stop an itch and realize it’s because you’ve ripped a hole in your skin.”

— Gillian Flynn

173. “No parents should see their child die, that such an event is like nature spun backward.”

— Gillian Flynn

174. “I think there is something very relatable in the idea that you hit a certain age, later in your life, where you realize you have to pick up the rug and see what’s underneath it and deal with stuff.”

— Gillian Flynn

175. “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.”

— Gillian Flynn

176. “I’m not good at things like that: haircuts or oil changes or dentist visits. When I moved into my bungalow, I spent the first three months swaddled in blankets because I couldn’t deal with getting the gas turned on. It’s been turned off three times in the past few years, because sometimes I can’t quite bring myself to write a check. I have trouble maintaining.”

— Gillian Flynn

177. “It infects you. It ruined me.”

— Gillian Flynn

178. “Paper is first year,′ I said. At the end of Year One’s unexpectedly wrenching treasure hunt, Amy presented me with a set of posh stationery, my initials embossed at the top, the paper so creamy I expected my fingers to come away moist. In return, I’d presented my wife with a bright red dime-store paper kite, picturing the park, picnics, warm summer gusts. Neither of us liked our presents; we’s each have preferred the other’s. It was a reverse O. Henry.”

— Gillian Flynn

179. “Libby was a Christmas baby, which meant she never got the right amount of presents. Patty would hold one extra gift aside – and Happy Birthday to Libby! – but they all knew the truth, Libby got ripped off. Libby rarely felt less than ripped off.”

— Gillian Flynn

180. “Smile, it can’t be that bad! Yeah, actually, it can, jackwad.”

— Gillian Flynn

181. “The worst feeling: when you just have to wait and prepare yourself for the lie.”

— Gillian Flynn

182. “So there it came, out of nowhere, as Rand begged for his daughter’s return: a killer smile.”

— Gillian Flynn

183. “No.” I folded in on myself, ignoring my meal, projecting glumness. That was another of my mom’s words: glum. It meant having the blues in a way that annoyed other people. Having the blues aggressively.”

— Gillian Flynn

184. “Nick grew up with a father who never ever apologized, so when Nick feels he has screwed up he goes on offense.”

— Gillian Flynn

185. “They have no harsh edges with each other, no spiny conflicts, they ride through life like conjoined jellyfish – expanding and contracting instinctively, filling each other’s spaces liquidly.”

— Gillian Flynn

186. “And when I picture his mind, I hear my name as a shy crystal ping that occurs once, maybe twice, a day and quickly subsides. I just wish he thought about me as much as I do him.”

— Gillian Flynn

187. “I’m in a foreign land, trying to explain myself, trying to make myself known. Because isn’t that the point of every relationship: to be known by someone else, to be understood? He gets me. She gets me. Isn’t that the simple magic phrase?”

— Gillian Flynn

188. “It’s all too much for her, the cruelty of human beings.”

— Gillian Flynn

189. “Tears ran down my mother’s cheeks and dripped loudly onto the leather purse she held in her lap. The woman next to her patted her hand. I slipped my notepad from my jacket pocket and began scribbling notes to one side until my mother slapped her hand on mine and hissed, “You are being disrespectful and embarrassing. Stop or I will make you leave.” I quit writing but kept the pad out, feeling stabbingly defiant. But still blushing.”

— Gillian Flynn

190. “You don’t ever want to be the wife who keeps her husband from playing poker.”

— Gillian Flynn

191. “That’s the way plants down here work: The Mexicans get the shittiest, most dangerous jobs, and the whites still complain.”

— Gillian Flynn

192. “I knew I liked her then, really liked her, this girl with an explanation for everything.”

— Gillian Flynn

193. “She is an incredibly intelligent idiot.”

— Gillian Flynn

194. “We are all working from the same dog-eared script.”

— Gillian Flynn

195. “It was one of those moments where you saved me, you made me laugh at just the right time.”

— Gillian Flynn

196. “I was never really on my side in any argument. I liked the Old Testament spitefulness of the phrase got what she deserved.”

— Gillian Flynn

197. “Everyone who keeps a secret, itches to tell it.”

— Gillian Flynn

198. “It sounded artificial, like a beauty contestant pledging world peace.”

— Gillian Flynn

199. “Get all that bad stuff out, sweetheart. Don’t stop till it’s all out.”

— Gillian Flynn

200. “And I didn’t realize. I didn’t take into account. Just. You know, this is real to you. I mean, I know that, we know that, but we don’t at the same time. We really just never will. I don’t think. Totally get that. You spend so much time discussing and debating it becomes... But. Well. I’m sorry.”

— Gillian Flynn