Maybe I was just flirting with madness the way I flirted with my teachers and my classmates. — Susanna Kaysen 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 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
Emptiness and boredom: what an understatement. What I felt was complete desolation. Desolation, despair, and depression. Isn't there some other way to… — Susanna Kaysen 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
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
It's important to cultivate detachment. One way to do this is to practice imagining yourself dead, or in the process of dying.… — Susanna Kaysen 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 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 was my… — Susanna Kaysen Copy Share Image
I don't have a whole bunch of literary connections. I don't write reviews or attend writer's conferences. I'm kind of shy and don't want… — Susanna Kaysen Copy Share Image
Light like this does not exist, but we wish it did. We wish the sun could make us young and beautiful, we wish our… — Susanna Kaysen Copy Share Image
If I could have any job in the world I'd be a professional Cinderella. — Susanna Kaysen Copy Share Image
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… — Susanna Kaysen 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
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… — 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 the world… — Susanna Kaysen Copy Share Image
“People ask, How did you get in there? What they really want to know is if they are likely to end up in there… — Susanna Kaysen 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
Scar tissue has no character. It's not like skin. It doesn't show age or illness or pallor or tan. It has no pores, no… — Susanna Kaysen Copy Share Image
