Emptiness and boredom: what a complete understatement. What I felt was complete desolation. Desolation, despair and boredom. — Susanna Kaysen Boredom Copy Share Image
When you’re sad you need to hear your sorrow structured into sound. — Susanna Kaysen Grief Copy Share Image
Mental illness seems to be a communication problem between interpreters one and two. — Susanna Kaysen Communication Copy Share Image
“In a strange way we were free. We’d reached the end of the line. We had nothing more to lose.” — Susanna Kaysen Copy Share Image
Tell me that you don’t take that blade and drag it across your skin and pray for the courage to press down. — Susanna Kaysen Copy Share Image
“imagined my character as a plate or shirt that had been manufactured incorrectly and was therefore useless.” — Susanna Kaysen Copy Share Image
It was a spring day, the sort that gives people hope: all soft winds and delicate smells of warm earth. Suicide weather. — Susanna Kaysen Copy Share Image
“The shimmering, ever-shifting borderline, like all boundaries beckons and asks to be crossed.” — Susanna Kaysen Copy Share Image
“Boyfriends and literature: How can you make a life out of those two things? As it turns out, I did; more literature… — Susanna Kaysen Books Copy Share Image
“Once you've posed that question, it won't go away. I think many people kill themselves simply to stop the debate about whether… — Susanna Kaysen Debate Copy Share Image
In a strange way we were free. We'd reached the end of the line. We had nothing more to lose. Our privacy,… — Susanna Kaysen Copy Share Image
“What does the sign say?” “ ‘If you lived here, you’d be home now.’ ” She clenched her hands with excitement. “See, every day… — Susanna Kaysen Copy Share Image
We say that Columbus discovered America and Newton discovered gravity, as though America and gravity weren't there until Columbus and Newton got… — Susanna Kaysen America Copy Share Image
Scar tissue has no character. It's not like skin. It doesn't show age or illness or pallor or tan. It has no… — Susanna Kaysen Age Copy Share Image
“Scar tissue has no character. It's not like skin. It doesn't show age or illness or pallor or tan. IT has no… — Susanna Kaysen Scar Copy Share Image
Our hospital was famous and housed many great poets and singers. Did the hospital specialize in poets and singers or was it… — Susanna Kaysen Great poet Copy Share Image
This clarity made me able to behave normally, which posed some interesting questions. Was everybody seeing this stuff and acting as though… — Susanna Kaysen Copy Share Image
The debate was wearing me out. Once you've posed that question, it won't go away. I think many people kill themselves simply… — Susanna Kaysen Copy Share Image
“Back then I didn't know that Ior anyonecould make a life out of boyfriends and literature. As far as I could see,… — Susanna Kaysen Anger Copy Share Image
“I was trying to explain my situation to myself. My situation was that I was in pain and nobody knew it; even… — Susanna Kaysen Pain Copy Share Image
“a tidal wave of blackness broke over her head. The entire world was obliterated–for a few minutes. She knew she had gone… — Susanna Kaysen Darkness Copy Share Image
Don’t ask me those questions! Don’t ask me what life means or how we know reality or why we have to suffer… — Susanna Kaysen Angel Copy Share Image
“Back then I didn't know that I -- or anyone-- could make a life out of boyfriends and literature. As far as… — Susanna Kaysen Anger Copy Share Image
“But the fact that I couldn't hold my job was worrisome. I was probably crazy. I'd been skirting the idea of craziness… — Susanna Kaysen Craziness Copy Share Image
“Did the hospital specialize in poets and singers, or was it that poets and singers specialized in madness?” — Susanna Kaysen Madness Copy Share Image
“I would if somebody would want to but of course nobody would want to so I wouldn't want to force anybody to… — Susanna Kaysen Anxiety Copy Share Image
It's one of the reasons I became a writer, to be able to smoke in peace. — Susanna Kaysen Copy Share Image
“I think many people ill themselves simply to stop the debate about whether they will or they won't.” — Susanna Kaysen Debate Copy Share Image
When women are angry at men, they call them heartless. When men are angry at women, they call them crazy. — Susanna Kaysen Angry Copy Share Image
Was everybody seeing this stuff and acting as though they weren't? Was insanity just a matter of dropping the act? — Susanna Kaysen Acting Copy Share Image
Not everything has a happy ending, and not everything has an ending. Some things just kind of dribble away or cut off… — Susanna Kaysen Copy Share Image
Maybe I was just flirting with madness the way I flirted with my teachers and my classmates. — Susanna Kaysen Classmates Copy Share Image
... now I was safe, now I was really crazy, and nobody could take me out of there. — Susanna Kaysen Copy Share Image
My family had a lot of characteristics - achievements, ambitions, talents, expectations - that all seemed to be recessive in me. — Susanna Kaysen Achievement Copy Share Image
I noticed that some of my deadness was being replaced by an intense feeling about the Greek stories and the Bible stories.… — Susanna Kaysen Bible Copy Share Image
Actually, it was only part of myself I wanted to kill: the part that wanted to kill herself, that dragged me into… — Susanna Kaysen Debate Copy Share Image
It is easy to slip into a parallel universe. There are so many of them: worlds of the insane, the criminal, the… — Susanna Kaysen Criminals Copy Share Image
I had an inspiration once. I woke up one morning and I knew that it was my task to swallow fifty asprin.It… — Susanna Kaysen Copy Share Image
And in the end, I lost him. I did it on purpose, the way Garance lost Baptiste in the crowd. I needed… — Susanna Kaysen Copy Share Image
“Their love story unfolded and then folded up again in Cambridge, as I watched and took mental notes and learned nothing, naturally,… — Susanna Kaysen Human heart Copy Share Image
