Marya Hornbacher

There is, in the end, the letting go.

— Marya Hornbacher

“Men are embarrassingly easy to seduce.”

— Marya Hornbacher

“... comprehending little and caring less.”

— Marya Hornbacher

Hatred is so much closer to love than indifference.

— Marya Hornbacher

People take the feeling of full for granted.

— Marya Hornbacher

So many means of self-destruction, so little time.

— Marya Hornbacher

“My most salient memories”

— Marya Hornbacher

...painfully curious...about how it feels to fall.

— Marya Hornbacher

“I began to feel like I was wearing a sign on my forehead that said FUCKED UP in big neon letters.”

— Marya Hornbacher

Falling in love happens so suddenly that it seems, all at once, that you have always been in love.

— Marya Hornbacher

“They are solid, real. I am an object, useful but hollow. The absence of thought fills me up.”

— Marya Hornbacher

Some people who are obsessed with food become gourmet chefs. Others become eating disorders.

— Marya Hornbacher

The biggest fear of my life is living. My second biggest fear is dying.

— Marya Hornbacher

For me, the first sign of oncoming madness is that I'm unable to write.

— Marya Hornbacher

I know for a fact that sickness is easier, but health is more interesting.

— Marya Hornbacher

And yet you are all that you have, so you must be enough. There is no other way.

— Marya Hornbacher

“What a child knows about transformation is very little. What an adult knows, I think, is even less. Because a child at…

— Marya Hornbacher

Because I'm not, in fact, depressed, Prozac makes me manic and numb - one of the reasons I slice my arm in…

— Marya Hornbacher

My brain sometimes departs from the agreed-upon reality, and my private reality is a very lonely place. But in the end, I'm…

— Marya Hornbacher

I have a remarkable ability to delete all better judgement from my brain when I get my head set on something. I…

— Marya Hornbacher

Starvation is incredibly frightening when it finally sets in with a vengeance. And when it does,you are surprised. You hadn't meant this.…

— Marya Hornbacher

Me and my needs were driving my mother away. Me and my needs retreated to my closet, disappeared into fairy tales. I…

— Marya Hornbacher

The madness is there, and will always be there. But it will keep sleeping, as long as I don't wake it up.

— Marya Hornbacher

My parents say that even as a very, very little kid, the way that I acted was dramatically different from other little…

— Marya Hornbacher

There was a time when I was unable to get out of bed because my body, its muscles eating themselves away, refused…

— Marya Hornbacher

“As I head back up the stairs, I hear the dryer make a sound of great mechanical distress, nnnnnnneeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee , and I…

— Marya Hornbacher

“Sitting out there on the porch, I laughed. How funny—to think of us turning our clocks this way and that, importantly telling…

— Marya Hornbacher

“For all its God language, the Twelve Step program isn’t actually an attempt at religious conversion. Really, it just tries to bring…

— Marya Hornbacher

You will not stop. The pain is necessary, especially the pain of hunger. It reassures you that you are strong, can withstand…

— Marya Hornbacher

Were I to put myself on... one of those online dating things, I would not include in my profile that I'm regularly…

— Marya Hornbacher

“we have few words for spiritual beyond those that refer back to a God. But not believing in a God is not…

— Marya Hornbacher

This is the very boring part of eating disorders, the aftermath. When you eat and hate that you eat. And yet of…

— Marya Hornbacher

“Something had been confirmed: I was worth giving a shit about; I was getting to be a successful sick person. Sick is…

— Marya Hornbacher

“Uncle Joe used to spend a fair amount of time in the loony bin. My family wasn't bothered by his regular trips…

— Marya Hornbacher

I was perpetually grief-stricken when I finished a book, and would slide down from my sitting position on the bed, put my…

— Marya Hornbacher

“It's never over. Not really. Not when you stay down there as long as I did, not when you've lived in the…

— Marya Hornbacher

I threw up again that night, half-afraid that my eyeballs would explode. But it was, by far, more important that I get…

— Marya Hornbacher

“There are a lot of times the heart burrows deeper, goes tunnelling into itself for reasons only the heart itself seems to…

— Marya Hornbacher

“So rather than running from doubt, shutting down our spirits and hearts, or reaching for quick certainty, we can use doubt as…

— Marya Hornbacher

“Your ability to withstand pain is your claim to fame. It is ascetic, holy. It is self-control. It is masochism, and masochism…

— Marya Hornbacher