How we cite our quotes: Chapter.Paragraph
Quote #1
I like a writer party, I like writers, I am the child of writers, I am a writer. I still love scribbling that word—WRITER—anytime a form, questionnaire, document, asks for my occupation. Fine, I write personality quizzes. I don't write about Great Issues of the Day, but I think it's fair to say that I am a writer. (2.2)
One thing Gone Girl basically hammers us with from the beginning is how deeply writing is ingrained in Nick and Amy's identities. In the first chapter, we learn that Nick grieves the loss of his magazine writing job, while in this, the first of Amy's diary entries, we see her literally define "writer" as her identity. The fact that both characters find their sense of self in their jobs rather than their marriage is probably a major cause of their relationship's downfall.
Quote #2
He talks to me in his river-wavy Missouri accent; he was born and raised outside of Hannibal, the boyhood home of Mark Twain, the inspiration for Tom Sawyer. He tells me he worked on a steamboat when he was a teenager, dinner and jazz for the tourists. (2.17)
Writing isn't only part of Nick's identity in terms of his former career in New York—it's also woven into the fabric of his heritage. He grew up surrounded by the legendary presence of Mark Twain, played Tom Sawyer at the Hannibal tourist sites, and frequently references the writer's role in his past.
Quote #3
Just last night was my parents' book party. Amazing Amy and the Big Day. Yup, Rand and Marybeth couldn't resist. They've given their daughter's namesake what they can't give their daughter: a husband! Yes, for book twenty, Amazing Amy is getting married! Wheeeeeee. No one cares. Leave her in kneesocks and hair ribbons and let me grow up, unencumbered by my literary alter ego, my paper-bound better half, the me I was supposed to be. (4.7)
Not only is Amy a writer who is the daughter of writers, but she is actually a living, breathing fictional character. Her parents' Amazing Amy books, while the source of her privileged upbringing, also did serious damage to her sense of self. Amazing Amy is the embodiment of her every failure to be the daughter her parents wanted her to be, and is the beginning of Gone Girl's theme of how damaging the fictional personalities we create for ourselves can be.