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" 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. "

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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 mostly go under the radar, which is fantastic because I would not be a good famous person. "

Gillian Flynn

Good

Famous

" You have to be pretty selfless to have a child, who doesn't give a lot back to you. "

" People focus on the darker female characters in my books, but for every one of those, I can also show you an equally screwed up man that no one ever comments about, or a nicer woman that no one comments about. I don't feel like that's my specialty. "

" 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

" 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 always loved scary movies, and my dad was a film professor. "

" The first time my mom read my very first book, she was like, 'I'm not gonna belabor this. It's not a big deal. But I have to ask the question: Is everything okay?' "

" I grew up in the '80s where there's a lot of these kind of post-apocalyptic, post-comet, post-whatever it was, so that always captured my imagination a lot as a little kid, that idea of getting access to secret places and being able to roam around where you're not supposed to. "

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

" Even good characters have their dark sides, and I think it is important that women aren't seen as innately good. "

" Very quickly, I discovered I did not have what it takes to be a good crime reporter: I was too unassertive and a little bit wimpy. It was very clear that was not what I was going to do, but I loved journalism, and I'm the daughter of a film professor, and my mom taught reading. "

" I think everyone self-mythologizes. "

" I love 'Fatal Attraction.' "

" I've always been a mystery fan. My very first grown-up book, I distinctly remember going to the library and my mom helping me pick out an Agatha Christie book. I was in fifth grade or something and very proud of being in the adult fiction aisles. I tore through 'The Mysterious Affair at Styles.' "

" I think that women really entwine with the people that they become close to in a way that men don't - and so, when they are forced to disentwine, you can't remove the vines without doing some damage. "

" I'm all for whatever transitions the book properly to a movie. "

" My interest is in turning over a rock and seeing what's underneath. It's a personality trait more than anything; it's what made me want to become a crime reporter, even though I was not suited for it personality-wise. "

" A great thriller, to me, is more about creating a sense of unease: a queasiness that comes with knowing something is not quite right. "

Gillian Flynn

Creating

Right

" 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. "

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

Gillian Flynn

Take

Professor

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" Women are just as violently minded as men are, but with men, it's taken for granted. "

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

" I feel like I need to give people a note with the book that says, 'I'm OK, no worries!' "

" I watched 'Psycho' a million times. "

" I was a quirky kid. I think that's the kind way of putting it. "