“One of my teachers told me I was a nihilist. He meant it as an insult but i took it as a… — Susanna Kaysen Nihilist Copy Share Image
It was my misfortune-or salvation-to be at all times perfectly conscious of my misperceptions of reality. — Susanna Kaysen Copy Share Image
I needed to be alone, I felt. I wanted to be going on alone to my future. — Susanna Kaysen Copy Share Image
What is it about meter and cadence and rhythm that makes their makers mad? — Susanna Kaysen Cadence Copy Share Image
An observer can't tell if a person is silent and still because inner life has stalled or because inner life is transfixingly… — Susanna Kaysen Copy Share Image
I think many people kill themselves simply to stop the debate about whether they will or they won't. — Susanna Kaysen Debate Copy Share Image
“Emptiness and boredom: what an understatement. What I felt was complete desolation. Desolation, despair, and depression.” — Susanna Kaysen Depression Copy Share Image
“It’s a mean world,” she’d say. She was usually glad enough to be back. “There’s nobody to take care of you out… — Susanna Kaysen Heart Copy Share Image
“Asa had a sharp understanding of the future--that is, a time when this would be past. Time was rushing through and around… — Susanna Kaysen Future Copy Share Image
It's a long way from not having enough serotonin to thinking the world is "stale, flat and unprofitable"; even further to writing… — Susanna Kaysen Driven Copy Share Image
My chronic feelings of emptiness and boredom came from the fact that I was living a life based on my incapacities, which… — Susanna Kaysen Boredom Copy Share Image
“This was what was wonderful, standing alone in the big, soft night rewriting the past to make myself miss what had never… — Susanna Kaysen Past Copy Share Image
“I can honestly say that my misery had been transformed into common unhappiness, so by Freud's definition I have achieved mental health.” — Susanna Kaysen Borderline-personality-disorder Copy Share Image
Crazy isn't being broken or swallowing a dark secret. It's you or me amplified. If you ever told a lie and enjoyed… — Susanna Kaysen Copy Share Image
Insanity comes in two basic varieties: slow and fast. I'm not talking about onset or duration. I mean the quality of the… — Susanna Kaysen Copy Share Image
“Was I ever crazy? Maybe. Or maybe life is… Crazy isn’t being broken or swallowing a dark secret. It’s you or me… — Susanna Kaysen Copy Share Image
You could also "request" to be locked into the seclusion room. Not many people made that request. You had to "request" to… — Susanna Kaysen Copy Share Image
By the time we hit the streets they were silent and closed in on us, and they had assumed the Nonchalant Look,… — Susanna Kaysen Copy Share Image
For many of us, the hospital was as much a refuge as it was a prison. Though we were cut off from… — Susanna Kaysen Copy Share Image
Viscosity and velocity are opposites, yet they can look the same. Viscosity causes the stillness of disinclination, velocity causes the stillness of… — Susanna Kaysen Copy Share Image
“Nothing," I said. "It's quiet. It's like― I don't know. It's like falling off a cliff." I laughed. "I guess my life… — Susanna Kaysen Life Copy Share Image
“When digital watches were invented years later they reminded me of five-minute checks. They murdered time in the same way -slowly- chopping… — Susanna Kaysen Clock Copy Share Image
Don't separate the mind from the body. Don't separate even character - you can't. Our unit of existence is a body, a… — Susanna Kaysen Body Copy Share Image
Twenty aspirin, a little slit alongside the veins of the arm, maybe even a bad half hour standing on a roof: We've… — Susanna Kaysen Copy Share Image
“The point is, the brain talks to itself, and by talking to itself changes its perceptions. To make a new version of… — Susanna Kaysen Communication Copy Share Image
“Who had the courage to burn herself? Twenty aspirin, a little slit alongside the veins of the arm, maybe even a bad… — Susanna Kaysen Courage Copy Share Image
“Viscosity occurs on a cellular level. And so does velocity.In contrast to viscosity's cellular coma, velocity endows every platelet and muscle fiber… — Susanna Kaysen Girl interrupted Copy Share Image
“It was a different precondition that tipped the balance: the state of contrariety. My ambition was to negate. The world, whether dense… — Susanna Kaysen Ambition Copy Share Image
“This person is (pick one): 1. on a perilous journey from which we can learn much when he or she returns; 2.… — Susanna Kaysen Autobiography Copy Share Image
For nearly a century the psychoanalysts have been writing op-ed pieces about the workings of a country they've never traveled to, a… — Susanna Kaysen Analysts Copy Share Image
There is thought, and then there is thinking about thoughts, and they don't feel the same. — Susanna Kaysen Copy Share Image
