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Quote by Gillian Flynn

“For those who need a name, there's a gift basket of medical terms. All I know is cutting made me feel safe. It was proof. Thoughts and words, captured where I could see them and track them. The truth, stinging, on my skin, in a freakish shorthand. Tell me you're going to the doctor, and I'll want to cut worrisome on my arm. Say you've fallen in love and I buzz the outlines of tragic over my breast. I hadn't necessarily wanted to be cured.”

Quote by Gillian Flynn

Author

Gillian Flynn is an American author known for her suspense novels. Her works are characterized by complex characters and tense plots, with her most famous novel being 'Gone Girl'. more

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“It was that summer, too, that I began the cutting, and was almost as devoted to it as my newfound loveliness. I adored tending to myself, wiping a shallow red pool of my blood away with a damp washcloth to magically reveal, just above my naval: queasy. Applying alcohol with dabs of a cottonball, wispy shreds sticking to the bloody lines of: perky. I had a dirty streak my senior year, which I later rectified.”

Years Lines Cutting Blood Summer Red Alcohol Dirty Injury Pool Devoted Bloody Senior Shallow Streaks Loveliness Damp Naval Self Injury Senior Year Dabs Perky

Book:Sharp Objects: A Novel

Source: Sharp Objects: A Novel

“I am a cutter, you see. Also a snipper, a slicer, a carver, a jabber. I am a very special case. I have a purpose. My skin, you see, screams. It's covered with words - cook, cupcake, kitty, curls - as if a knife-wielding first-grader learned to write on my flesh. I sometimes, but only sometimes, laugh. Getting out of the bath and seeing, out of the corner of my eye, down the side of a leg: baby-doll. Pulling on a sweater, and in a flash of my wrist: harmful. Why these words?”

Source: The Novels of Gillian Flynn: Sharp Objects, Dark Places

“Françoise could not help taking a surreptitious glance at Xavière: she gave a start of amazement. Xavière was no longer watching, her head was lowered. Françoise barely suppressed a scream. The girl was pressing the lighted end against her skin, a bitter smile curling her lips. It was an intimate, solitary smile, like that of a half-wit; the voluptuous, tortured smile of a woman possessed of some secret pleasure.”

Ends Helping Girl Pleasure Secret Half Skins Lips Wit Bitter Intimate Injury Scream Possessed Solitary Glances Amazement Self Injury Voluptuous

Author:Simone de Beauvoir

“I took my mother's knife and played johnny johnny johnny on the playhouse floor. I was drunk, stabbed myself every few throws. I held my hand up and there was satisfaction at seeing my blood, the way there was when I saw the red gouges onmy face that people stared at and turned away. They were thinking I was beautiful, but they were wrong, now they could see how ugly and mutilated I was.”

People Thinking Way Hands Beautiful Faces Mother Saws Seeing Blood Red Satisfaction Ugly Drunk Injury Knives Hands Up Self Injury

Book:White Oleander

Source: White Oleander

“Used to be that my whole body was my canvas-hot cuts licking my ribs, ladder rungs climbing my arms, thick milkweed stalks shooting up my thighs.”

Whole Body Used Cutting Arms Hot Used To Be Shooting Injury Climbing Thick Canvas Ladders Stalking Thighs Ribs Licking Self Injury Shooting Up Milkweed

Book:Wintergirls

Source: Wintergirls

“Why? You want to know why? Step into a tanning booth and fry yourself for two or three days. After your skin bubbles and peels off, roll in coarse salt, then pull on long underwear woven from spun glass and razor wire. Over that goes your regular clothes, as long as they are tight.”

Knows Want Long Two Three Steps Clothes Skins Glasses Injury Bubbles Salt Wire Underwear Woven Razors Spun Coarse Self Injury Tanning Wintergirls

Book:Wintergirls

Source: Wintergirls

“The bathroom door swings open. Emma sees the blood painting my skin and the red rivers carved on my body. Emma sees the wet knife, silver and bone. The screams of my little sister shatter mirrors.”

Littles Body Doors Blood Painting Red Rivers Skins Mirrors Bones Injury Silver Knives Scream Swings Wet Bathroom Emma Little Sister Self Injury

Book:Wintergirls

Source: Wintergirls

“Two days later, two days before Christmas, I am judged fat and sane enough to be kicked out of the hospital. The plan to send me straight back to New Seasons won't work. There is no room at the inn for a leather Lia-skin plumped full of messy things. Not yet. The director promises Dr. Marrigan he'll have a bed for me next week. I'm stable enough to go home until then. They all say I'm stable.”

Two Enough Home Next Rooms Plans Week Promise Bed Directors Skins Seasons Fats Injury Hospitals Judged Stable Sane Drs Messy Leather Two Days Next Week Inns Self Injury

Book:Wintergirls

Source: Wintergirls

“I inscribe three lines, hush hush hush, into my skin. Ghosts trickle out.”

Three Lines Skins Ghost Injury Hush Self Injury Hush Hush Wintergirls

Book:Wintergirls

Source: Wintergirls

“I showed her how I'd been making tiny cuts in my skin to let the badness and the pain leak out. They were shallow at first, and short, like claw marks made by a desperate cat that wanted to hid under the front porch. Cutting pain was a different flavor of hurt. It made it easier not to think about having my body and my family and my life stolen, made it easier not to care.”