"I ached once, hard, like a period typed at the end of a sentence."
— Gillian Flynn (Sharp Objects: A Novel)

"I felt something loosen in me, that shouldn't have loosened. A stitch come undone."
— Gillian Flynn (Dark Places)

"Sometimes I think illness sits inside every woman, waiting for the right moment to bloom. I have known so many sick women all my life. Women with chronic pain, with ever-gestating diseases. Women with conditions. Men, sure, they have bone snaps, they have backaches, they have a surgery or two, yank out a tonsil, insert a shiny plastic hip. Women get consumed."
— Gillian Flynn (Sharp Objects: A Novel)

"There was nothing I wanted to do more than be unconscious again, wrapped in black, gone away. I was raw. I felt swollen with potential tears, like a water balloon filled to burst. Begging for a pin prick."
— Gillian Flynn (Sharp Objects: A Novel)

"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."
— Gillian Flynn (Dark Places: A Novel)

"I was not a lovable child, and I'd grown into a deeply unlovable adult. Draw a picture of my soul, and it'd be a scribble with fangs."
— Gillian Flynn (Dark Places: A Novel)