Quotes from Dark Places

Gillian Flynn ·  349 pages

Rating: (424.1K votes)


“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, quote from Dark Places


“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, quote from Dark Places


“The truly frightening flaw in humanity is our capacity for cruelty - we all have it.”
― Gillian Flynn, quote from Dark Places


“It was surprising that you could spend hours in the middle of the night pretending things were okay, and know in thirty seconds of daylight that simply wasn't so”
― Gillian Flynn, quote from Dark Places


“I am not angry or sad or happy to see you. I could not give a shit. You don't even ripple.”
― Gillian Flynn, quote from Dark Places



“I was raised feral, and I mostly stayed that way.”
― Gillian Flynn, quote from Dark Places


“I am, I guess, depressed. I guess I've been depressed for about twenty-four years. I can feel a better version of me somewhere in there - hidden behind a liver or attached to a bit of spleen within my stunted, childish body - a Libby that's telling me to get up, do something, grow up, move on. But the meanness usually wins out. (2)”
― Gillian Flynn, quote from Dark Places


“I felt something loosen in me, that shouldn't have loosened. A stitch come undone.”
― Gillian Flynn, quote from Dark Places


“Don't be discouraged - every relationship you have is a failure, until you find the right one.”
― Gillian Flynn, quote from Dark Places


“Coffee goes great with sudden death.”
― Gillian Flynn, quote from Dark Places



“Everyone who keeps a secret, itches to tell it.”
― Gillian Flynn, quote from Dark Places


“There are few phrases that annoy me more than I won't bite. The only line that pisses me off faster is when some drunk, ham-faced dude in a bar sees me trying to get past him and barks: Smile,it can't be that bad! Yeah, actually, it can, jackwad.”
― Gillian Flynn, quote from Dark Places


“I should just listen to my gut and then do the opposite.”
― Gillian Flynn, quote from Dark Places


“Glum. It meant having the blues in a way that annoyed other people. Having the blues aggressively.”
― Gillian Flynn, quote from Dark Places


“I assumed everything bad in the world could happen, because everything bad in the world already did happen.”
― Gillian Flynn, quote from Dark Places



“Sometimes he felt like he'd been gone his whole life--in exile, away from the place he was supposed to be, and that, soldier-like, he was pining to be returned. Homesick for a place he'd never been.”
― Gillian Flynn, quote from Dark Places


“You think you know the answer, you’re going to find peace? Like knowing is somehow going to fix you? You think after what happened there’s any peace for you, sweetheart? How about this. Instead of asking yourself what happened, just accept that it happened.”
― Gillian Flynn, quote from Dark Places


“The Days were a clan that mighta lived long
But Ben Day’s head got screwed on wrong
That boy craved dark Satan’s power
So he killed his family in one nasty hour
Little Michelle he strangled in the night
Then chopped up Debby: a bloody sight
Mother Patty he saved for last
Blew off her head with a shotgun blast
Baby Libby somehow survived
But to live through that ain’t much a life
—SCHOOLYARD RHYME, CIRCA 1985”
― Gillian Flynn, quote from Dark Places


“Worries find you easily enough without inviting them.”
― Gillian Flynn, quote from Dark Places


“I'm not someone who can be depended one five days a week. Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday? I don't even get out of bed five days in a row-I often don't remember to eat five days in a row. Reporting to a workplace, where I should need to stay for eight hours-eight big hours outside my home- was unfeasible.”
― Gillian Flynn, quote from Dark Places



“I've had the blues for twenty-four years.”
― Gillian Flynn, quote from Dark Places


“When I was fourteen, I thought a lot about killing myself—it’s a hobby today, but at age fourteen it was a vocation. On a September morning, just after school started, I’d gotten Diane’s .44 Magnum and held it, babylike, in my lap for hours. What an indulgence it would be, to just blow off my head, all my mean spirits disappearing with a gun blast, like blowing a seedy dandelion apart. But I thought about Diane, and her coming home to my small torso and a red wall, and I couldn’t do it. It’s probably why I was so hateful to her, she kept me from what I wanted the most.”
― Gillian Flynn, quote from Dark Places


“The actual stuff my family owned, those boxes under my stairs, I can't quite bear to look at. I like other people's things better. They come with other people's history.”
― Gillian Flynn, quote from Dark Places


“I have a meanness inside of me, real as an organ.”
― Gillian Flynn, quote from Dark Places


“Do you understand this is serious?"

"I understand you think it's serious.”
― Gillian Flynn, quote from Dark Places



“A veces sienta bien joder a alguien. En vez de que siempre lo jodan a uno”
― Gillian Flynn, quote from Dark Places


“It seemed like a joke, how much all of these dudes looked alike, like living was so hard it just erased your features, rubbed out anything distinctive.”
― Gillian Flynn, quote from Dark Places


“I felt hollowed out. My mom's death was not useful. I felt a shot of rage at her, and then imagined those last bloody moments in the house, when she realized it had gone wrong, when Debby lay dying, and it was all over, her unsterling life.
My anger gave way to a strange tenderness, what a mother might feel for her child, and I thought, At least she tried. She tried, on that final day, as hard as anyone could have tried.
And I would try to find peace in that.”
― Gillian Flynn, quote from Dark Places


“Whenever I see news stories about children who were killed by their parents, I think: But how could it be? They cared enough to give this kid a name, they had a moment—at least one moment—when they sifted through all the possibilities and picked one specific name for their child, decided what they would call their baby. How could you kill something you cared enough to name?”
― Gillian Flynn, quote from Dark Places


Video

About the author

Gillian Flynn
Born place: Kansas City, MO, The United States
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“But so much of what is beautiful and valuable in the world comes from the shepherd, who has more strength and purpose than we ever imagine.”
― Malcolm Gladwell, quote from David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants (Audio CD)


“And if I'm alone in bed, I will go to the window, look up at the sky, and feel certain that loneliness is a lie, because the Universe is there to keep me company.”
― Paulo Coelho, quote from Akras manuskripts


“I like squirrels,” she says with a shrug.”
― Sandy Hall, quote from A Little Something Different


“A singular moth flutters in through the wind baffles to the naked bulb above the kettle, cuspid, a drifting piece of loose ash on the white filament, paper burnt up, caught in the rising current from some fire unseen, unfelt.”
― Cynan Jones, quote from The Dig


“All relationships are built on lies. They're built on what we think the other person wants to see in us, and what we want to see in them, and how we each interpret the subjective symbols of communication. Too much truth would spoil it.”
― Alex Lux, quote from Call Me Cat


Interesting books

The Hound of the Baskervilles
(193K)
The Hound of the Bas...
by Arthur Conan Doyle
V for Vendetta
(226.8K)
V for Vendetta
by Alan Moore
Dark Lover
(251.3K)
Dark Lover
by J.R. Ward
The Mark of Athena
(346.7K)
The Mark of Athena
by Rick Riordan
A Separate Peace
(168.1K)
A Separate Peace
by John Knowles
Eldest
(286.5K)
Eldest
by Christopher Paolini

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.