My dad had limitations. That’s what my good-hearted mom always told us. He had limitations, but he meant no harm. It was kind of her to say, but he did do harm.

Bang bang bang. I understand now why so many horror movies use that device-the mysterious knock on the door-because it has the weight of a nightmare. You don’t know what’s out there, yet you know...

You’re sexist. I’m so sick of liberal lefty men practicing sexual discrimination under the guide of protecting women against sexual discrimination.

I’d developed an inability to demonstrate much negative emotion at all. It was another thing that made me seem like a dick – my stomach could be all oiled eels, and you would get nothing...

It is always consoling to think of suicide;it’s what gets one through many a bad night.

Yes, I am finally a match for Amy. The other morning I woke up next to her, and I studied the back of her skull. I tried to read her thoughts. For once I didn’t...

One should never marry a man who doesn’t own a decent set of scissors.

Tampon commercial, detergent commercial, maxi pad commercial, windex commercial – you’d think all women do is clean and bleed.

I don’t feel the need to explain my actions to her. I don’t clarify, I don’t doubt, I don’t worry. I don’t tell her everything, not anymore, but I tell her more than anyone else,...

Och när man sedan håller på att köpa tärnad cantaloupemelon på Sjunde Avenyn råkar man få syn på Nick Dunne, och pang, där är någon som känner en, någon som känner igen en. Och det...

She has that voraciousness about children. She swoops in on them. Even I, in public was a beloved child. She’d parade me into town, smiling and teasing me, tickling me as she spoke with people...

It was that summer, too, that I began the cutting, and was almost as devoted to it as to my newfound loveliness. I adored tending to myself, wiping a shallow red pool of my blood...

I didn’t think past the first step of anything, that was the key. I drank a Coke and didn’t worry about how to recycle the can or about the acid puddling in my belly, acid...

The old Amy, the girl of the big laugh and the easy ways, literally shed herself, a pile of skin and soul on the floor, and stepped this new, brittle, bitter Amy … a razor-wire...

Like walking through a door. Our relationship immediately attained a sepia tone: the past.

I know a little bit about trying to do the right thing and fucking up completely.” I added.”You talking about mom?” Ben said”I was talking about me.””You could have been talking about all of us....

…my father, [was] a mid-level phonecompany manager who treated my mother at best like an incompetent employee. At worst? He never beat her, but his pure, inarticulate fury would fill the house for days, weeks,...

Back in grade school, my shrinks tried to channel my viciousness into a constructive outlet, so I cut things with scissors. Heavy, cheap fabrics Diane bought by the bolt. I sliced through them with old...

I am overachieving at aimlessness, I am a type-A, alpha-girl lollygagger, the leader of a gang of heartbroken kids, running wild across this lonely strip of amusements, each of us smarting from the betrayals of...

I don’t know that we are actually human at this point, those of us who are like most of us, who grew up with TV and movies and now the Internet. If we are betrayed,...

E pensei: o amor faz você querer ser um homem melhor – certo, certo. Mas talvez amor, amor de verdade, também lhe de a permissão para ser apenas o homem que é.

The Amy of today was abrasive enough to want to hurt, sometimes. I speak specifically of the Amy of today, who was only remotely like the woman I fell in love with. It had been...

I’ve grown quite weary of the spunky heroines, brave rape victims, soul-searching fashionistas that stock so many books. I particularly mourn the lack of female villains — good, potent female villains. Not ill-tempered women who...

I hate strong women.”)

I think maybe, when I was very young, I witnessed a chaste cheek kiss between the two when it was impossible to avoid. Christmas, birthdays. Dry lips. On their best married days, their communications were...

Compromise, communicate, and never go to bed angry – the three pieces of advice gifted and regifted to all newlyweds.

I regretted what a serious teenager I’d been: There were no posters of pop stars or favorite movies, no girlish collection of photos or corsages. Instead there were paintings of sailboats, proper pastel pastorals, a...

There’s a difference between really loving someone and loving the idea of her.

He wears his cockiness like an ironic T-shirt, but it fits him better.

So are there any asshole guys here I can start dating?’ she says. ‘That’s, like, my pattern.

The one plentiful herds of magazine writers would continue to be culled – by the Internet, by the recession, by the American public, who would rather watch TV or play video games or electronically inform...

My brain is so busy with Nick thoughts, it’s a swarm inside my head: Nicknicknicknicknick! And when I picture his mind, I hear my name as a shy crystal ping that occurs once, maybe twice,...

Blame the economy, blame bad luck, blame my parents, blame your parents, blame the Internet, blame people who use the Internet.

We were born in the ’70s, back when twins were rare, a bit magical: cousins of the unicorn, siblings of the elves.

Amy! My God! My God! My darling!’ and buried my face in her neck, my arms wrapped tight around her, and let the cameras get their fifteen seconds, and I whispered deep inside her ear,...

The quotes were good, if overpolished. I find this common, and in direct proportion to the amount of TV a subject watches. Not long ago, I interviewed a woman whose twenty-two-year-old daughter had just been...

Love makes you want to be a better man. But maybe love, real love, also gives you permission to just be the man you are.

But it’s tempting to be Cool Girl. For someone like me, who likes to win, it’s tempting to want to be the girl every guy wants. When I met Nick, I knew immediately that was...

The man cocked his gun and Patty had time for one last thought: I wish, I wish, I wish I could take this back.

in these shitty plastic days …

I know, I know, I’m being a girl.

She blew more smoke toward me, a lazy game of cancer catch.

Natalie was buried in the family plot, next to a gravestone that already bore her parents’ names. I know the wisdom, that no parents should see their child die, that such an event is like...

We named the bar The Bar. “People will think we’re ironic instead of creatively bankrupt,” my sister reasoned.Yes, we thought we were being clever New Yorkers – that the name was a joke no one...

Det var dagen efter självständighetsdagen den 4 juli och lukten av svavel från fyrverkerierna blandade sig med lukten av salt från havet – det var sommar.

The ones who are not soul-mated – the ones who have settled – are even more dismissive of my singleness: It’s not that hard to find someone to marry, they say. No relationship is perfect,...

The secondhand experience is always better. The image is crisper, the view is keener, the camera angle and the soundtrack manipulate my emotions in a way reality can’t anymore. I don’t know that we are...

I could see the cat was definitely on the steps. Still on the steps, 20 minutes after Carl’s call. This was strange; Amy loved the cat. The cat was declawed, the cat was never let...

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...

…and you drink a little too much and try a little too hard. And you go home to a cold bed and think, ‘That was fine’. And your life is a long line of fine.