Day Seventeen: Favourite quote from a favourite book…
I’m going to sound like a fan girl again – hell I am a fan girl, a big one, of Gillian Flynn. So I’m going to pick a quote from Dark Places.
“Libby Day was just seven years old when her older brother massacred her family while she hid in a cupboard. Her evidence helped put him away. Ever since then she has been drifting, surviving for over 20 years on the proceeds of the ‘Libby Day fund’. But now the money is running out and Libby is desperate. When she is offered $500 to do a guest appearance, she feels she has to accept. But this is no ordinary gathering. The Kill Club is a group of true-crime obsessives who share information on notorious murders, and they think her brother Ben is innocent.”
I adore Flynn’s writing and there are so many quotes just from this one book I could pick. Such as:
“I am not angry or sad or happy to see you. I could not give a shit. You don’t even ripple.”
Or something dangerous and beautiful like this:
“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.”
Or these two quotes that I can definitely relate to on personal levels:
“Coffee goes great with sudden death.”
And:
Of course I’m cheating and sneaking these quotes in, but my official pick is this quote:
“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.”
I love this image of someone’s nasty streak being something physical inside them that could be cut out. The violence of the sentence is simple, quick and slick like a slit across the belly and I also like the vulnerability presented.
If you haven’t read it yet, you’re missing out!
AbmostFiction 