Sharp Objects

by Gillian Flynn

The problem started long before that, of course. Problems always start long before you really, really see them.

Every phrase had to be captured on paper or it wasn’t real, it slipped away.

They always call depression the blues, but I would have been happy to waken to a periwinkle outlook. Depression to me is urine yellow. Washed out, exhausted miles of weak piss.

It’s impossible to compete with the dead. I wished I could stop trying.

Every tragedy that happens in the world happens to my mother, and this more than anything about her turns my stomach.

“I just think some women aren’t made to be mothers. And some women aren’t made to be daughters.”

“Ah, well, being conflicted means you can live a shallow life without copping to being a shallow person.”

A leftover rattle from childhood. Get that fixed.

Now it was just me, feeling sticky and stupid. I couldn’t decide if I’d been mistreated. By Richard, by those boys who took my virginity, by anyone. I was never really on my side in any argument. I liked the Old Testament spitefulness of the phrase got what she deserved. Sometimes women do.

Sometimes I think illness sits inside every woman, waiting for the right moment to bloom.

I’ve always believed clear-eyed sobriety was for the harder hearted.