Susanna Kaysen quotes

Lunatics are similar to designated hitters. Often an entire family is crazy, but since an entire family can't go into the hospital, one person is designated as crazy and goes inside. (Susanna Kaysen)
Not everything has a happy ending, and not everything has an ending. Some things just kind of dribble away or cut off abruptly. View quote
Susanna Kaysen
You have to have a somewhat cold heart to be a writer. View quote
Susanna Kaysen
As far as I could see, life demanded skills I didn't have. View quote
Susanna Kaysen
In a strange way we were free. We'd reached the end of the line. We had nothing more to lose. Our privacy, our liberty, our dignity: all of this was gone and we were stripped down to the bare bones of our selves. View quote
Susanna Kaysen
It was a spring day, the sort that gives people hope: all soft winds and delicate smells of warm earth. Suicide weather. View quote
Susanna Kaysen
Smile and the world smiles with you, cry and you cry alone. View quote
Susanna Kaysen
When women are angry at men, they call them heartless. When men are angry at women, they call them crazy. View quote
Susanna Kaysen
Suicide is a form of murder-premeditated murder. It isn't something you do the first time you think of doing it. It takes getting used to. And you need the means, the opportunity, the motive. A successful suicide demands good organization and a cool head, both of which are usually incompatible with the suicidal state of mind. View quote
Susanna Kaysen
The world didn't stop because we weren't in it anymore. View quote
Susanna Kaysen
My father was judgmental and kind of mean, and I'm like that. And he was very perfectionistic, and I'm like that. And he was very hard on himself, and I'm like that. (Susanna Kaysen)
It is easy to slip into a parallel universe. There are so many of them: worlds of the insane, the criminal, the crippled, the dying, perhaps of the dead as well. These worlds exist alongside this world and resemble it, but are not in it. View quote
Susanna Kaysen
Have you ever confused a dream with life? Or stolen something when you have the cash? Have you ever been blue? Or thought your train moving while sitting still? Maybe I was just crazy. Maybe it was the 60's. Or maybe I was just a girl... interrupted. View quote
Susanna Kaysen
With wild eyes that had seen freedom. View quote
Susanna Kaysen
When I was supposed to be awake, I was asleep. When I was supposed to sleep, I was silent. When a pleasure offered itself to me, I avoided it. View quote
Susanna Kaysen
Tell me that you don't take that blade and drag it across your skin and pray for the courage to press down. View quote
Susanna Kaysen
If I could have any job in the world I'd be a professional Cinderella. View quote
Susanna Kaysen
Whatever we call it - mind, character, soul - we like to think we possess something that is greater than the sum of our neurons and that animates us. View quote
Susanna Kaysen
It's a long way from not having enough serotonin to thinking the world is "stale, flat and unprofitable"; even further to writing a play about a man driven by that thought. View quote
Susanna Kaysen
What is it about meter and cadence and rhythm that makes their makers mad? View quote
Susanna Kaysen
People ask, How did you get in there? What they really want to know is if they are likely to end up in there as well. I can't answer the real question. All I can tell them is, It's easy. Most people pass over incrementally, making a series of perforations in the membrane between here and there until an opening exists. And who can resist an opening? (Susanna Kaysen)
One of my teachers told me I was a nihilist. He meant it as an insult but I took it as a compliment. View quote
Susanna Kaysen
Our hospital was famous and housed many great poets and singers. Did the hospital specialize in poets and singers or was it that poets and singers specialized in madness? View quote
Susanna Kaysen
The only way to stay sane is to go a little crazy. View quote
Susanna Kaysen
Actually, it was only part of myself I wanted to kill: the part that wanted to kill herself, that dragged me into the suicide debate and made every window, kitchen implement, and subway station a rehearsal for tragedy. View quote
Susanna Kaysen