Susanna Kaysen Interrupted Quotations

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

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

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.

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. How you hurt yourself on the outside to try to kill the thing on the inside.

Was insanity just a matter of dropping the act?

We say that Columbus discovered America and Newton discovered gravity, as though America and gravity weren't there until Columbus and Newton got wind of them.

My family had a lot of characteristics - achievements, ambitions, talents, expectations - that all seemed to be recessive in me.

Tell me that you don’t take that blade and drag it across your skin and pray for the courage to press down.

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.

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

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.

When you’re sad you need to hear your sorrow structured into sound.

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