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" I could not have written a novel if I hadn't been a journalist first, because it taught me that there's no muse that's going to come down and bestow upon you the mood to write. You just have to do it. I'm definitely not precious. "

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" The number of mystery and horror writers I've met who are just the sanest and the nicest people... it's crazy. Maybe it's because the writing gets something out of the system? "

Gillian Flynn

Mystery

People

Writing

" I like westerns, fantasy, sci-fi, graphic novels, thrillers, and I try to avoid the word 'genre' altogether. A good book is a good book. "

Gillian Flynn

Fantasy

Try

" I think it's a very female trait to want to please men and to want to be considered the Cool Girl. And if you take that to the farthest reach, where you're actually selling yourself out and degrading yourself by doing things you don't actually want to do, only in order for this man to think that you do, that's a very perverse thing. "

" I want books to give me insight into the way people's brains work and hearts work, and that's what engages me. "

" In college, I discovered the Joyce Carol Oates short story 'Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?' which is definitely one of the most incredibly unnerving, frightening short stories ever written. "

" I get really tense during the first draft. Really tense. That's not great for my family, because the first draft usually takes about a year. "

" I think women do have that fatal streak to them that's partly because it's been romanticized, the martyr complex - 'Look what you did to me!' "

" I've never been interested in watching or reading anything because it's the hero's story. I don't feel the need to be inspired by the character or learn a lesson. I feel the need to be engaged by them. "

" That's always been part of my goal - to show the dark side of women. Men write about bad men all the time, and they're called antiheroes. "

" I've seen movies that are slavishly devoted to books but don't work because they haven't turned it into a movie: they've turned it into a dramatisation of the different scenes. "

" My dad was a film professor, so he would take me to wildly inappropriate movies. "

Gillian Flynn

Take

Professor

" One of my biggest peeves is when the writer hasn't given you enough information to figure everything out. You should be able to go back to the beginning of 'Gone Girl,' after you've already read it and you know everything, and say, 'Check - check - yes, she gave us that information.' "

" I read all kinds of novels, as long as they're good. "

" Female violence is a specific brand of ferocity. It's invasive. A girlfight is all teeth and hair, spit and nails - a much more fearsome thing to watch than two dudes clobbering each other. "

" I've always read in order to figure out people more, and that includes bad people and good people. "

" A really great popcorn movie is extremely hard to pull off. A really great popcorn book is equally hard to pull off, so I don't feel guilty devouring one. "

" Books and movies are kind of my two great loves. I don't have too many other actual hobbies. That's pretty much it. "

" As much as I really like the screenwriting thing, the novel is where the author has so much control. "

" 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. "

" No one watches 'Taxi Driver' and says, 'Oh, it's a male-oriented film.' No one looks at nine-tenths of the films out there that are headlined by men and say, 'It's a male-oriented film.' "

" I had been laid off from 'Entertainment Weekly 'right before I started writing 'Gone Girl.' "

" Libraries are filled with stories on generations of brutal men, trapped in a cycle of aggression. I wanted to write about the violence of women. "

" I love Joyce Carol Oates. I love Margaret Atwood, T.C. Boyle. Arthur Phillips is always consistent. "

" I don't think I'm naturally a good person. I think some people have an innate goodness to them, and I am sort of proud of the fact that I kind of keep myself in check, probably because I have awesome parents. "

" There's nothing that can drive me from zero to crazy faster than a man who comes up to me and says, 'You know, I don't normally read books by women, but I really liked 'Gone Girl.'' "

" There's a book by Anne Rivers Siddons called 'The House Next Door' that I just think is one of the all-time great haunted-house stories. I think that's one of the all-time greatest. "

" I was not a nice little girl. My favorite summertime hobby was stunning ants and feeding them to spiders. "

" Some of the most disturbing, sick relationships I've witnessed are between long-time friends, and especially mothers and daughters. "

" We're into this barrage of pop culture - you know, TV, movies, the Internet. We become creatures that we've made up, made of certain different flotsam from pop culture and certain different personas that are in style. "

" I do spend - I feel like I spend about my first 20 minutes at any cocktail party convincing people that I'm not going to harm them in some way. "

Gillian Flynn

Party

People