Susanna Kaysen Quotes

Quotes about:

Boredom Character Debate Depression Emptiness Feelings Girl Interrupted

Crazy isn't being broken or swallowing a dark secret. It's you or me amplified. If you ever told a lie and enjoyed it. If you ever wished you could be a child forever.

Susanna Kaysen

Children, Crazy, Lying

"Girl, Interrupted". www.imdb.com. 1999.

67 Copy quote
The only way to stay sane is to go a little crazy.

Susanna Kaysen

Inspirational, Crazy, Girl Interrupted

"Fictional Character: Susanna". "Girl, Interrupted", www.imdb.com. 1999.

65 Copy quote
I know what it's like to want to die. How it hurts to smile. How you try to fit in but you can't. You hurt yourself on the outside to try to kill the thing on the inside.

Susanna Kaysen

Hurt, Girl Interrupted, Trying

"Girl, Interrupted". www.imdb.com. 1999.

45 Copy quote
Smile and the world smiles with you, cry and you cry alone.

Susanna Kaysen

World, Cry, Smile To The World

31 Copy quote
It was a spring day, the sort that gives people hope: all soft winds and delicate smells of warm earth. Suicide weather.

Susanna Kaysen

Suicide, Spring, Smell

Susanna Kaysen (2013). “Girl, Interrupted”, p.52, Vintage

6 Copy quote
My chronic feelings of emptiness and boredom came from the fact that I was living a life based on my incapacities, which were numerous.

Susanna Kaysen

Boredom, Feelings, Facts

Susanna Kaysen (2013). “Girl, Interrupted”, p.154, Vintage

33 Copy quote
I told her once I wasn’t good at anything. She told me survival is a talent.

Susanna Kaysen

Girl Interrupted, Survival, Talent

53 Copy quote
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 is designated as crazy and goes inside. Then, depending on how the rest of the family is feeling that person is kept inside or snatched out, to prove something about the family's mental health.

Susanna Kaysen

Depression, Crazy, Girl Interrupted

Susanna Kaysen (2013). “Girl, Interrupted”, p.95, Vintage

33 Copy quote
When women are angry at men, they call them heartless. When men are angry at women, they call them crazy.

Susanna Kaysen

Crazy, Men, Heartless

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Actually, it was only part of myself I wanted to kill: the part that wanted to kill herself, that dragged me into the suicide debate and made every window, kitchen implement, and subway station a rehearsal for tragedy.

Susanna Kaysen

Suicide, Girl Interrupted, Kitchen

Susanna Kaysen (2013). “Girl, Interrupted”, p.37, Vintage

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It is easy to slip into a parallel universe. There are so many of them: worlds of the insane, the criminal, the crippled, the dying, perhaps of the dead as well. These worlds exist alongside this world and resemble it, but are not in it.

Susanna Kaysen

Dying, Insane, Criminals

"Girl, Interrupted". Book by Susanna Kaysen, 1993.

15 Copy quote
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 hair, no wrinkles. It's like a slip cover. It shields and disguises what's beneath. That's why we grow it; we have something to hide.

Susanna Kaysen

Character, Wrinkles, Hair

FaceBook post by Susanna Kaysen from Mar 08, 2016

23 Copy quote
A thought is a hard thing to control.

Susanna Kaysen

Hard, Hard Things

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As far as I could see, life demanded skills I didn't have.

Susanna Kaysen

Skills

Susanna Kaysen (2013). “Girl, Interrupted”, p.155, Vintage

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I was trying to explain my situation to myself. My situation was that I was in pain and nobody knew it, even I had trouble knowing it. So I told myself, over and over, You are in pain. It was the only way I could get through to myself. I was demonstrating externally and irrefutably an inward condition.

Susanna Kaysen

Pain, Knowing, Over You

Susanna Kaysen (2013). “Girl, Interrupted”, p.153, Vintage

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Not everything has a happy ending, and not everything has an ending. Some things just kind of dribble away or cut off abruptly.

Susanna Kaysen

Cutting, Kind, Happy Endings

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In a strange way we were free. We'd reached the end of the line. We had nothing more to lose. Our privacy, our liberty, our dignity: all of this was gone and we were stripped down to the bare bones of our selves

Susanna Kaysen

Self, Liberty, Gone

Susanna Kaysen (2013). “Girl, Interrupted”, p.94, Vintage

5 Copy quote
Viscosity and velocity are opposites, yet they can look the same. Viscosity causes the stillness of disinclination, velocity causes the stillness of fascination. An observer can't tell if a person is silent and still because inner life has stalled or because inner life is transfixingly busy.

Susanna Kaysen

Opposites, Causes, Fascination

Susanna Kaysen (2013). “Girl, Interrupted”, p.77, Vintage

18 Copy quote
It's important to cultivate detachment. One way to do this is to practice imagining yourself dead, or in the process of dying. If there's a window, you must imagine your body falling out the window. If there's a knife, you must imagine the knife piercing your skin. If there's a train coming, you must imagine your torso flattened under its wheels. These exercises are necessary to achieving the proper distance.

Susanna Kaysen

Distance, Fall, Numbness

"Girl, Interrupted". Book by Susanna Kaysen, 1994.

19 Copy quote
Suicide is a form of murder - premeditated murder. It isn't something you do the first time you think of doing it. It takes getting used to. And you need the means, the opportunity, the motive. A successful suicide demands good organization and a cool head, both of which are usually incompatible with the suicidal state of mind.

Susanna Kaysen

Suicide, Suicidal, Mean

FaceBook post by Susanna Kaysen from Mar 22, 2014

22 Copy quote
For many of us, the hospital was as much a refuge as it was a prison. Though we were cut off from the world and all the trouble we enjoyed stirring up out there, we were also cut off from the demands and expectations that had driven us crazy. What could be expected of us now that we were stowed away in a loony bin?

Susanna Kaysen

Crazy, Cutting, Expectations

Susanna Kaysen (2013). “Girl, Interrupted”, p.94, Vintage

5 Copy quote
Emptiness and boredom: what an understatement. What I felt was complete desolation. Desolation, despair, and depression. Isn't there some other way to look at this? After all, angst of these dimensions is a luxury item. You need to be well fed, clothes, and housed to have time for this much self-pity.

Susanna Kaysen

Self, Luxury, Clothes

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Twenty aspirin, a little slit alongside the veins of the arm, maybe even a bad half hour standing on a roof: We've all had those. And somewhat more dangerous things, like putting a gun in your mouth. But you put it there, you taste it, it's cold and greasy, your finger is on the trigger, and you find that a whole world lies between this moment and the moment you've been planning, when you'll pull the trigger. That world defeats you. You put the gun back in the drawer. You'll have to find another way.

Susanna Kaysen

Lying, Gun, Girl Interrupted

Susanna Kaysen (2013). “Girl, Interrupted”, p.17, Vintage

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Every window in Alcatraz has a view of San Francisco.

Susanna Kaysen

Cheer Up, Views, San Francisco

Susanna Kaysen (2013). “Girl, Interrupted”, p.6, Vintage

59 Copy quote
Was insanity just a matter of dropping the act?

Susanna Kaysen

Girl Interrupted, Insanity, Matter

Susanna Kaysen (2013). “Girl, Interrupted”, p.41, Vintage

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Born: November 11, 1948
Occupation: Author
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