Susanna Kaysen quotes - page 3

Crazy isn't being broken or swallowing a dark secret. It's you or me amplified. If you ever told a lie and enjoyed it. If you ever wished you could be a child forever. (Susanna Kaysen)
I know what it's like to want to die. How it hurts to smile. How you try to fit in but you can't. You hurt yourself on the outside to try to kill the thing on the inside. View quote
Susanna Kaysen
I think many people kill themselves simply to stop the debate about whether they will or they won't. View quote
Susanna Kaysen
It's one of the reasons I became a writer, to be able to smoke in peace. View quote
Susanna Kaysen
Was everybody seeing this stuff and acting as though they weren't? Was insanity just a matter of dropping the act? View quote
Susanna Kaysen
We say that Columbus discovered America and Newton discovered gravity, as though America and gravity weren't there until Columbus and Newton got wind of them. View quote
Susanna Kaysen
There is thought, and then there is thinking about thoughts, and they don't feel the same. View quote
Susanna Kaysen
The girl at her music sits in another sort of light,the fitful,overcast light of lie,by which we see ourselves and others only imprefectly, and seldom..-Girl,Interrupted. View quote
Susanna Kaysen
I had an inspiration once. I woke up one morning and I knew that it was my task to swallow fifty asprin.It was my task:my job for the day.-17 Girl Interrupted. View quote
Susanna Kaysen
Maybe, there's a moment growing up when something peels back... Maybe, maybe, we look for secrets because we can't believe our minds... View quote
Susanna Kaysen
And in the end, I lost him. I did it on purpose, the way Garance lost Baptiste in the crowd. I needed to be alone, I felt. I wanted to be going on alone to my future. (Susanna Kaysen)
It's a fairly accurate portrait of me at eighteen, minus a few quirks like reckless driving and eating binges. It's accurate but it isn't profound. View quote
Susanna Kaysen
They did not put much value on my capacities, which were admittedly few, but genuine. I read everything, I wrote constantly, and I had boyfriends by the barrelful. "Why don't you do the assigned reading?” they'd ask. "Why don't you write your papers instead of whatever you're writing-what is that, a short story?” "Why don't you expend as much energy on your schoolwork as you do on your boyfriends?” By my senior year I didn't even bother with excuses, let alone explanations. "Where is your term paper?” asked my history teacher. "I didn't write it. I have nothing to say on that topic.” "You could have picked another topic.” "I have nothing to say on any historical topic.”. View quote
Susanna Kaysen