Elizabeth Wurtzel Quotes - Page 2

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I was so scared to give up depression, fearing that somehow the worst part of me was actually all of me.

Elizabeth Wurtzel

Giving Up, Giving, Scared

Elizabeth Wurtzel (2014). “Prozac Nation: Young and Depressed in America”, p.301, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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But day after day of depression, the kind that doesn’t seem to merit carting me off to a hospital but allows me to sit here on this stoop in summer camp as if I were normal, day after day wearing down everybody who gets near me. My behavior seems, somehow, not acute enough for them to know what to do with me, though I’m just enough of a mess to be driving everyone around me crazy.

Elizabeth Wurtzel

Summer, Crazy, Merit

Elizabeth Wurtzel (2014). “Prozac Nation: Young and Depressed in America”, p.66, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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I can see that I imagine all kinds of rejection that never happens. I can see that I beg and plead for love that is freely offered because I somehow believe that if I don't ask for it, everyone will forget about me: I will be a little kid sent off to sleep-away camp whose parents forget to meet her at the bus when she comes back in August. Or else I think people are nice to me only to be nice to me, that they feel sorry for me because I am such a loser- as if anyone could possibly be that generous.

Elizabeth Wurtzel

Sorry, Nice, Believe

Elizabeth Wurtzel (2007). “More, Now, Again: A Memoir of Addiction”, p.30, Simon and Schuster

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That's the thing I want to make clear about depression: It's got nothing at all to do with life. In the course of life, there is sadness and pain and sorrow, all of which, in their right time and season, are normal-unpleasant, but normal. Depression is an altogether different zone because it involves a complete absence: absence of affect, absence of feeling, absence of response, absence of interest. The pain you feel in the course of a major clinical depression is an attempt on nature's part (nature, after all, abhors a vacuum) to fill up the empty space.

Elizabeth Wurtzel

Pain, Sadness, Space

Elizabeth Wurtzel (2014). “Prozac Nation: Young and Depressed in America”, p.30, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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I know I can do so much more than this, I know that I could be a life force, could love with a heart full of soul, could feel with the power that flies men to the moon. I know that if I could just get out from under this depression, there is so much I could do besides cry in front of the TV on a Saturday night.

Elizabeth Wurtzel

Love, Heart, Moon

"Prozac Nation". Book by Elizabeth Wurtzel, 1994.

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Pain or not, I would most likely walk around in a suicidal reverie the rest of my life, never actually doing anything about it. Was there a psychological term for that? Was there a disease that involved an intense desire to die, but no will to go through with it? Couldn't talk and thoughts of suicide be considered a whole malady of their own, a special subcategory of depression in which the loss of a will to live has not quite been displaced by a determination to die?

Elizabeth Wurtzel

Suicide, Determination, Pain

Elizabeth Wurtzel (2014). “Prozac Nation: Young and Depressed in America”, p.138, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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I dont know if im running because i'm scared or if i'm scared because i'm running.

Elizabeth Wurtzel

Running, Scared, Knows

Elizabeth Wurtzel (2014). “Prozac Nation: Young and Depressed in America”, p.105, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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Its the people you are close to, the ones who love you, the ones who have seen your heart, who have touched your soul - to them, it is obvious that something is wrong or missing. Your heart and soul are missing. They feel it. It hurts them. It kills them.

Elizabeth Wurtzel

Love, Hurt, Heart

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They can give you all the pills on earth and do whatever - and you're still yourself.

Elizabeth Wurtzel

Giving, Pills, Earth

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Everything's plastic, we're all going to die sooner or later, so what does it matter.

Elizabeth Wurtzel

Matter, Doe, Prozac Nation

Elizabeth Wurtzel (2014). “Prozac Nation: Young and Depressed in America”, p.22, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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The desire to be seen as superior and singular- and, conversely, but similarly, inferior and individual, is a big topic...They have a term for the syndrome- it is called terminal uniqueness...we all refuse to be part of the crowd, to walk in the middle of the road in the safety of others. We all think were special. But the problem is, as I point out to Dr. Singer all the time, I actually am special.

Elizabeth Wurtzel

Thinking, Safety, Special

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Banned! My eyes light up, I think I see stars. Anything that has been banned by anyone must be something I’d like.

Elizabeth Wurtzel

Stars, Eye, Thinking

Elizabeth Wurtzel (2007). “More, Now, Again: A Memoir of Addiction”, p.35, Simon and Schuster

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Taking a hypersensitive approach to life had come to seem so much more pure and honest then joining the ranks of the numb masses who could let it all slide by. What I stopped realizing was that if you feel everything intensely, ultimately you feel nothing at all. Everything registers at the same decibel.

Elizabeth Wurtzel

Joining, Slides, Honest

Elizabeth Wurtzel (2014). “Prozac Nation: Young and Depressed in America”, p.302, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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You know you've completely descended into madness when the matter of shampoo has ascended to philosophical heights.

Elizabeth Wurtzel

Philosophical, Height, Matter

Elizabeth Wurtzel (2014). “Prozac Nation: Young and Depressed in America”, p.267, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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And it seemed hard to believe that these people who were so close to me couldn’t see how desperate I was, or if they could they didn’t care enough to do anything about it, or if they cared enough to do anything about it they didn’t believe there was anything they could do, not knowing—or not wanting to know—that their belief might have been the thing that made the difference.

Elizabeth Wurtzel

Believe, Differences, Knowing

Elizabeth Wurtzel (2014). “Prozac Nation: Young and Depressed in America”, p.84, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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But then I never had to worry about a crash landing because I never even took off.

Elizabeth Wurtzel

Worry, Crash, Landing

Elizabeth Wurtzel (2014). “Prozac Nation: Young and Depressed in America”, p.47, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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The measure of our mindfulness, the touchstone for sanity in this society, is our level of productivity, our attention to responsibility, our ability to plain and simple hold down a job. If you're still at the point when you're even just barely going through the motions--showing up at work, paying the bills--you are still okay or okay enough. A desire not to acknowledge sadness in ourselves or those close to us--better known these days as denial, is such a strong urge that plenty of people prefer to think that until you are actually flying out of a window, you don't have a problem.

Elizabeth Wurtzel

Strong, Jobs, Responsibility

Elizabeth Wurtzel (2014). “Prozac Nation: Young and Depressed in America”, p.59, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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Whenever I talk to anyone I care about, I am always seeking approval. There is always a pleading lilt in my voice that demands love. Even the people I work with, the ones I am supposed to have a professional relationship with, all business, get pulled into my need. I can't help it. I want to be adored.

Elizabeth Wurtzel

Voice, People, Needs

Elizabeth Wurtzel (2007). “More, Now, Again: A Memoir of Addiction”, p.113, Simon and Schuster

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There is a classic moment in ‘The Sun Also Rises’ when someone asks Mike Campbell how he went bankrupt, and all he can say in response is, “Gradually and then suddenly.” When someone asks how I lost my mind, that’s all I can say too.

Elizabeth Wurtzel

Mind, Sun, Classic

Elizabeth Wurtzel (2014). “Prozac Nation: Young and Depressed in America”, p.30, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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They have no idea what a bottomless pit of misery I am.

Elizabeth Wurtzel

Ideas, Pits, Misery

Elizabeth Wurtzel (2014). “Prozac Nation: Young and Depressed in America”, p.56, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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Age is a terrible avenger. The lessons of life give you so much to work with, but by the time you've got all this great wisdom, you don't get to be young anymore.

Elizabeth Wurtzel

Life Lesson, Giving, Age

“Failure to Launch: When Beauty Fades” by Elizabeth Whrtzel, www.elle.com. May 20, 2009.

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It's being a grown up, which I never figured out how to do, scrubbing the tub, and remembering to eat and shampoo my hair. It's the basics: I can write a whole book, but I cannot handle the basics.

Elizabeth Wurtzel

Book, Writing, Hair

Elizabeth Wurtzel (2007). “More, Now, Again: A Memoir of Addiction”, p.6, Simon and Schuster

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I start to get the feeling that something is really wrong. Like all the drugs put together – the lithium, the Prozac, the desipramine, and Desyrel that I take to sleep at night – can no longer combat whatever it is that was wrong with me in the first place. I feel like a defective model.

Elizabeth Wurtzel

Sleep, Night, Drug

Elizabeth Wurtzel (2014). “Prozac Nation: Young and Depressed in America”, p.12, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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Very early in my life it was already too late.

Elizabeth Wurtzel

Too Late, Late

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I thought depression was the part of my character that made me worthwhile. I thought so little of myself, felt that I had such scant offerings to give to the world, that the one thing that justified my existence at all was my agony.

Elizabeth Wurtzel

Depression, Character, Offering

Elizabeth Wurtzel (2014). “Prozac Nation: Young and Depressed in America”, p.302, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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Born: July 31, 1967
Occupation: Writer
Cite this Page: Citation

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