Quotes by Susanna Kaysen

“Every window in Alcatraz has a view of San Francisco. ”

“The debate was wearing me out. Once you've posed that question, it won't go away. I think many people kill themselves simply to stop the debate about whether they will or they won't. Anything I tho...”

“Was I ever crazy? Maybe. Or maybe life is Crazy isnt being broken or swallowing a dark secret. Its you or me amplified. If you ever told a lie and enjoyed it. If you ever wished you could be a chil...”

“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, dependin...”

“Kaysen elaborates through parts of the book on her thoughts about how mental illness is treated. She explains that families who are willing to pay the rather high costs of hospitalization do so to ...”

“I wasn't convinced I was crazy, though I feared I was. Some people say that having any conscious opinion on the matter is a mark of sanity, but I'm not sure that's true. I still think about it. I'l...”

“Recovered. Had my personality crossed over that border, whatever and wherever it was, to resume life within the confines of normal? Had I stopped arguing with my personality and learned to straddle...”

“All my integrity seemed to lie in saying No.”

“The world didn't stop because we weren't in it anymore.”

“Dont ask me those questions! Dont ask me what life means or how we know reality or why we have to suffer so much. Dont talk about how nothing feels real, how everything is coated with gelatin and s...”

“I would if somebody would want to but of course nobody would want to so I wouldn't want to force anybody to want to.”

“Smile and the world smiles with you, cry and you cry alone.”

“If I could have any job in the world I'd be a professional Cinderella.”

“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...”

“Nothing," I said. "It's quiet. It's like I don't know. It's like falling off a cliff." I laughed. "I guess my life will just stop when I get married."It didn't. It wasn't quiet either. And in the e...”

“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 s...”

“I think many people kill themselves simply to stop the debate about whether they will or they won't.”

“Why did she do it? Nobody dared to ask. Because - what courage! Who had the courage to burn herself? Twenty aspirin, a little slit alongside the veins of the arm, maybe even a bad half hour standin...”

“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 r...”

“An observer cant tell if a person is silent and still because inner life has stalled or because inner life is transfixingly busy.”