Gillian Flynn

New York was packed with writers, real writers, because there were magazines, real magazines, loads of them. This was back when the Internet was still some exotic pet kept in the corner of the publishing world--throw some kibble at it, watch it dance on its little leash, oh quite cute, it definitely won't kill us in the night.

Writers (my kind of writers: aspiring novelists, ruminative thinkers, people whose brains don't work quick enough to blog or link or tweet, basically old, stubborn blowhards) were through. We were like women's hat makers or buggy-whip manufacturers: Our time was done.

One should never marry a man who doesn't own a decent set of scissors.

Books are temporary , dicks are forever

She is an incredibly intelligent idiot

At that exact moment, 6-0-0, the sun climbed over the skyline of oaks, revealing its full summer angry-god self. Its re_ction _red across the river toward our house, a long, blaring _ger aimed at me through our frail bedroom curtains. Accusing: You have been seen. You will be seen.

what are you thinking, Amy? How are you feeling? Who are you? What have we ddone to each other? What will we do?

She has that voraciousness about children. She swoops in on them. Even I, in public was a beloved child. She'd parade me into town, smiling and teasing me, tickling me as she spoke with people on the sidewalks. When we got home, she'd trail off to her room like an unfinished sentence, and I would sit outside with my face pressed against her door, and replay the day in my head, searching for clues to what I had done to displease her.I have one memory that catches in me like a nasty clump of blood. Marian was dead about two years, and my mother had a cluster of friends come over for afternoon drinks. For hours, the child was cooed over, smothered with red lipstick kisses, tidied up with tissues, then lipstick smacked again. I was suppose to be reading in my room, but I sat at the top of the stairs watching. My mother finally was handed the baby, and she cuddled it ferociously. Oh, how, wonderful it is to hold a baby again! Adora jiggled it on her knee, walked it around the rooms, whispered to it, and I looked down from above like a spiteful little god, the back of my hand placed against my face, imagining how it felt to be cheek to cheek with my mother.

Ever been in a spelling bee as a kid? That snowy second after the announcement of the word as you sift your brain to see if you can spell it? It was like that, the blank panic.

Sleep is like a cat: It only comes to you if you ignore it. I drank more and continued my mantra. 'Stop thinking', swig, 'empty your head', swig, 'now, seriously empty your head'.

My brain is so busy with Nick thoughts, it__ a swarm inside my head: Nicknicknicknicknick! 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.Is that wrong? I don__ even know anymore.

I think of that, too: her mind. Her brain, all those coils, and her thoughts shuttling through those coils like fast, frantic centipedes. Like a child, I picture opening her skull, unspooling her brain and sifting through it, trying to catch and pin down her thoughts. What are you thinking, Amy?

We were born in the '70s, back when twins were rare, a bit magical: cousins of the unicorn, siblings of the elves.

It was one of the few stories we told the same way.

He wears his cockiness like an ironic T-shirt, but it fits him better.

I feel like Amy wanted people to believe she really was perfect. And as we got to be friends, I got to know her. And she wasn't perfect. You know? She was brilliant and charming and all that, but she was also controlling and OCD and a drama queen and a bit of a liar. Which was fine by me. It just wasn't fine by her. She got rid of me because I knew she wasn't perfect.

She released her grievances like handfuls of birdseed: They are there, and they are gone.

I am, after all, an adult, a grown man, a useful human being, even though I lost the career that made me all these things. I won't make that mistake again.