Susanna Kaysen Quotes - Page 3

Quotes about:

• It's a long way from not having enough serotonin to thinking the world is "stale, flat and unprofitable"; even further to writing a play about a man driven by that thought.

  Susanna Kaysen

  Writing, Men, Thinking

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

  7 Copy quote

• Which is worse, overload or underload? Luckily, I never had to choose. One or Pass on to where? Back into my cells to lurk like a virus waiting for the next opportunity? Out into the ether of the world to wait for the circumstances that would provoke its reappearance? Endogenous or exogenous, nature or nurture - it's the great mystery of mental illness.

  Susanna Kaysen

  Opportunity, Cells, Waiting

  Susanna Kaysen (2013). “Girl, Interrupted”, p.78, Vintage

  4 Copy quote

• 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, Self Harm, Suicidal

  Susanna Kaysen (2013). “Girl, Interrupted”, p.36, Vintage

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• 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 task:my job for the day.-17 Girl Interrupted

  Susanna Kaysen

  Girl, Morning, Jobs

  16 Copy quote

• The girl at her music sits in another sort of light,the fitful,overcast light of lie,by which we see ourselves and others only imprefectly, and seldom..-Girl,Interrupted

  Susanna Kaysen

  Girl, Lying, Light

  19 Copy quote

• The floor of ice cream parlor bothered me. It was black-and-white checkboard tile, bigger than supermarket checkboard. If I looked only at a white square, I would be all right, but it was hard to ignore the black squares that surrounded the white ones. The contrast got under my skin. The floor meant yes, no, this, that, up, down, day, night -all the indecisions and opposites that were bad enough in life without having them spelled out for you on the floor.

  Susanna Kaysen

  Black And White, Night, Squares

  4 Copy quote

• You have to have a somewhat cold heart to be a writer.

  Susanna Kaysen

  Heart, Cold, Cold Heart

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• You could also "request" to be locked into the seclusion room. Not many people made that request. You had to "request" to get out too. A nurse would look through the chicken wire and decide if you were ready to come out. Somewhat like looking at a cake through the glass of the oven door.

  Susanna Kaysen

  Glasses, Doors, Cake

  Susanna Kaysen (2013). “Girl, Interrupted”, p.46, Vintage

  5 Copy quote

• But when they were done, I wondered if there would be a next time. I felt good. I wasn’t dead, yet something was dead. Perhaps I’d managed my peculiar objective of partial suicide. I was lighter, airier than I’d been in years.

  Susanna Kaysen

  Suicide, Years, Would Be

  Susanna Kaysen (2013). “Girl, Interrupted”, p.38, Vintage

  7 Copy quote

• Disease [is] as one of our languages. Doctors understand what disease has to say about itself. It's up to the person with the disease to understand what the disease has to say to her.

  Susanna Kaysen

  Doctors, Disease, Language

  Susanna Kaysen (2001). “The Camera My Mother Gave Me”, p.126, Vintage

  5 Copy quote

• I am not a nurse escorting six lunatics to the ice cream parlor.

  Susanna Kaysen

  Ice Cream, Nurse, Six

  Susanna Kaysen (2013). “Girl, Interrupted”, p.51, Vintage

  56 Copy quote

• Whatever we call it - mind, character, soul - we like to think we possess something that is greater than the sum of our neurons and that animates us.

  Susanna Kaysen

  Character, Thinking, Soul

  7 Copy quote

• And this was the main precondition, that anything might be something else. Once I'd accepted that, it followed that I might be mad, or that someone might think me mad. How could I say for certain that I wasn't, if I couldn't say for certain that a curtain wasn't a mountain range?

  Susanna Kaysen

  Thinking, Mountain Ranges, Mad

  Susanna Kaysen (2013). “Girl, Interrupted”, p.42, Vintage

  7 Copy quote

• 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

  Girl Interrupted, Skins, Praying

  "Girl, Interrupted". www.imdb.com. December 8, 1999.

  7 Copy quote

• Something about the goat dancing made me want to cry.

  Susanna Kaysen

  Dancing, Goats, Want

  Susanna Kaysen (2013). “Girl, Interrupted”, p.162, Vintage

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• I'm your mind", it claims. "You can't parse ME into dendrites and synapses

  Susanna Kaysen

  Mind, Claims, Synapses

  4 Copy quote

• Insanity comes in two basic varieties: slow and fast. I'm not talking about onset or duration. I mean the quality of the insanity, the day-to-day business of being nuts.

  Susanna Kaysen

  Mean, Talking, Nuts

  Susanna Kaysen (2013). “Girl, Interrupted”, p.75, Vintage

  4 Copy quote

• What is it about meter and cadence and rhythm that makes their makers mad?

  Susanna Kaysen

  Mad, Cadence, Makers

  Susanna Kaysen (2013). “Girl, Interrupted”, p.48, Vintage

  4 Copy quote

• Confuse was the nurses' word for abuse.

  Susanna Kaysen

  Nurse, Abuse

  Susanna Kaysen (2013). “Girl, Interrupted”, p.96, Vintage

  4 Copy quote

• I needed to be alone, I felt. I wanted to be going on alone to my future.

  Susanna Kaysen

  My Future, Needed, Wanted

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• This behavior may...counteract feelings of'numbness'and depersonalization that aries duriing periods of extreme stress.-153 Girl,Interrupted

  Susanna Kaysen

  Girl, Stress, Numbness

  16 Copy quote

• This time I read the title of the painting: Girl Interrupted at Her Music. Interrupted at her music: as my life had been, interrupted in the music of being seventeen, as her life had been, snatched and fixed on canvas: one moment made to stand still and to stand for all the other moments, whatever they would be or might have been. What life can recover from that?

  Susanna Kaysen

  Girl, Titles, Would Be

  Girl, Interrupted (1993)

  4 Copy quote

• Maybe, there's a moment growing up when something peels back... Maybe, maybe, we look for secrets because we can't believe our minds...

  Susanna Kaysen

  Growing Up, Believe, Girl Interrupted

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

  6 Copy quote

• And in the end, I lost him. I did it on purpose, the way Garance lost Baptiste in the crowd. I needed to be alone, I felt. I wanted to be going on alone to my future.

  Susanna Kaysen

  Purpose, Crowds, Way

  4 Copy quote

• All my integrity seemed to lie in saying No.

  Susanna Kaysen

  Integrity, Lying, Saying No

  Susanna Kaysen (2013). “Girl, Interrupted”, p.42, Vintage

  4 Copy quote

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