Ned Vizzini quotes
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“I didn't want to wake up. I was having a much better time asleep. And that's really sad. It was almost like a reverse nightmare, like when you wake up from a nightmare you're so relieved. I woke up into a nightmare.”
-- Ned Vizzini -
“So why am I depressed? That's the million-dollar question, baby, the Tootsie Roll question; not even the owl knows the answer to that one. I don't know either. All I know is the chronology.”
-- Ned Vizzini -
“That's all I can do. I'll keep at it and hope it gets better.”
-- Ned Vizzini -
“I'm done with those; regrets are an excuse for people who have failed.”
-- Ned Vizzini -
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“Sometimes I just think depression's one way of coping with the world. Like, some people get drunk, some people do drugs, some people get depressed. Because there's so much stuff out there that you have to do something to deal with it.”
-- Ned Vizzini -
“Its so hard to talk when you want to kill yourself. That's above and beyond everything else, and it's not a mental complaint-it's a physical thing, like it's physically hard to open your mouth and make the words come out. They don't come out smooth and in conjunction with your brain the way normal people's words do; they come out in chunks as if from a crushed-ice dispenser; you stumble on them as they gather behind your lower lip. So you just keep quiet.”
-- Ned Vizzini -
“Sometimes when you open a book, time stops.”
-- Ned Vizzini -
“I don't know how I can be so ambitious and so lazy at the same time.”
-- Ned Vizzini -
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“She doesn't want to end up like me. At least I'm giving someone an example not to follow.”
-- Ned Vizzini -
“Dr. Barney stared at me, his lips puckered. What was he so serious about? Who hasn’t thought about killing themselves, as a kid? How can you grow up in this world and not think about it?”
-- Ned Vizzini -
“And I could have died right then. And considering how things went, I really should have.”
-- Ned Vizzini -
“I had fooled myself into thinking that I was something important to the rest of the world.”
-- Ned Vizzini -
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“A person's relationship with food is one of their most important relationships.”
-- Ned Vizzini -
“I wanted to tell people, "My depression is acting up today" as an excuse for not seeing them, but I never managed to pull it off.”
-- Ned Vizzini -
“It’s tough to get out of bed; I know that myself. You can lie there for an hour and a half without thinking anything, just worrying about what the day holds and knowing that you won’t be able to deal with it.”
-- Ned Vizzini -
“People are screwed up in this world. I'd rather be with someone screwed up and open about it than somebody perfect and ready to explode.”
-- Ned Vizzini -
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“I'm still a nobody, when am I not going to be a nobody?”
-- Ned Vizzini -
“I owe her everything and I love her and I tell her these days, although every time I say it, it gets a little diluted. I think you run out of I love yous.”
-- Ned Vizzini -
“See, when you mess something up, you learn for the next time. It's when people compliment you that you're in trouble. That means they expect you to keep it up.”
-- Ned Vizzini -
“Putting lessons in young adult books is very dangerous.”
-- Ned Vizzini -
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“Relationships change even more than people. It's like two people changing. It's exponentially more volatile. Especially two teenagers.”
-- Ned Vizzini -
“A lot of the books that I grew up reading were pretty brutal, like the Redwall books.”
-- Ned Vizzini -
“I should be a success and I'm not and other people- younger people- are. Younger people than me are on TV and getting their lives in order. I'm still a nobody. When am I going to not be a nobody?”
-- Ned Vizzini -
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“Life is not cured, Mr. Gilner." Dr. Mahmoud leans in. "Life is managed.”
-- Ned Vizzini -
“A working brain is probably a lot like a map, where anybody can get from one place to another on the freeways. It's the nonworking brains that get blocked, that have dead ends, that are under construction like mine.”
-- Ned Vizzini -
“People don't make good Anchors, though, Craig. They change.”
-- Ned Vizzini -
“And when you say the truth you get stronger.”
-- Ned Vizzini -
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“I wasn’t gifted. Mom was wrong. I was just smart and I worked hard. I had fooled myself into thinking that was something important to the rest of the world. Other people were complicit in this ruse. Nobody had told me I was common.”
-- Ned Vizzini -
“I'm smart but not enough--just smart enough to have problems.”
-- Ned Vizzini -
“deep down I believe my year was a special year: it produced me.”
-- Ned Vizzini -
“Ski. Sled. Play basketball. Jog. Run. Run. Run. Run home. Run home and enjoy. Enjoy. Take these verbs and enjoy them. They're yours, Craig. You deserve them because you chose them. You could have left them all behind but you chose to stay here. So now live for real, Craig. Live. Live. Live. Live. Live.”
-- Ned Vizzini -
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“I like how you don't hide your problems like everyone else, and I don't have to hide mine when I'm around you.”
-- Ned Vizzini -
“Sometimes I wish I had an easy answer for why I'm depressed.”
-- Ned Vizzini -
“Dad nods, looks me dead in the eyes; slowly and regretfully, he banishes all the smiling and joking from his face, and for once he's just my dad, watching his son who has fallen so low.”
-- Ned Vizzini -
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“But some people have to get lucky just to live. And I never knew I could make anybody lucky.”
-- Ned Vizzini -
“I had hurt her feelings, I found out later; I didn’t know I had that power.”
-- Ned Vizzini -
“I'm not afraid of dying, I'm afraid of living.”
-- Ned Vizzini -
“I want my brain to slide back into the slot it was meant to be in, rest there the way it did before the fall of last year, back when I was young, witty, and my teachers said I had incredible promise.”
-- Ned Vizzini -
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“I didn't want to wake up. I was having a much better time asleep. And that's really sad.”
-- Ned Vizzini -
“I was never big on rage.' 'Why?' "It's so much more angry in my head than it could ever be outside.”
-- Ned Vizzini -
“She's pretty." (It's amazing how girls can say this and make it the most withering insult.)”
-- Ned Vizzini -
“Of course I wasn't abused. If I were; things would be so simple. I'd have a reason to for being in a shrinks office. I'd have a justification and something to work on. The world wasn't going to give me something that tidy.”
-- Ned Vizzini -
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“I like you a lot. Because you’re funny and smart and because you seem to like me. I know that’s not a good reason, but I can’t help it; if a girl likes me I tend to like her back [...] I like you for all this stuff but I also kind of like you for the cuts on your face—”
-- Ned Vizzini -
“I'm going to be here until I'm cured?" "Life is not cured, Mr. Gilner. Life is managed".”
-- Ned Vizzini -
“I'm glad you came here and got the help you needed," Neil says, and he shakes my hand in that way that people do in here to remind themselves that you're the patient and they're the doctor/volunteer/ employee. They like you, and they genuinely want you to do better, but when they shake your hand you feel that distance, that slight disconnect because they know that you're still broken somewhere, that you might snap at any moment.”
-- Ned Vizzini -
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“If there is a next life, I hope it's in the past; I don't think the future will be any more handleable. I think it's a little harsh how the END button is red.”
-- Ned Vizzini -
“We're all animals, high school is animals, but some of us are more animal than others. Like in 'Animal Farm,' which I read, all animals are created equal, but some are more equal than others? Here in the real world, all equals are created animal, but some are more animal than others.”
-- Ned Vizzini -
“It’s a huge thing, this Shift, just as big as I imagined. My brain doesn’t want to think anymore; all of a sudden it wants to do.”
-- Ned Vizzini -
“I know a lot of famous people didn't do well at school, like James Brown; he dropped out in fifth grade to be an entertainer, I respect that... but that's not going to be me. I'm not going to be able to do anything but work as hard as possible all the time and compete with everyone I know all the time to make it.”
-- Ned Vizzini -
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“Some days I woke up and got out of bed and brushed my teeth like any normal human being; some days I woke up and laid in bed and looked at the ceiling and wondered what the hell the point was of getting out of bed and brushing my teeth like any normal human being.”
-- Ned Vizzini -
“How would you know? Everything’s like sex. It’s the universal metaphor. To pick a lock, let me guess, you have to go slow at first, but then you have to pull off some fancy moves, and you have to stay concentrated, and you have to stick something in something, right?”
-- Ned Vizzini -
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“I work. And I think about work, and I freak out about work, and I think about how much I think about work, and I freak out about how much I think about how much I think about work, and I think about how freaked out I get about how much I think about how much I think about work.”
-- Ned Vizzini -
“Things to do today: 1) Breathe in. 2) Breathe out.”
-- Ned Vizzini -
“Every tounge bit had another word to say.”
-- Ned Vizzini -
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“Dreams are only dreams until you wake up and make them real.”
-- Ned Vizzini -
“No," mom says, looking at me in the eyes. "What's a triumph is that you woke up this morning and decided to LIVE. THAT'S a triumph. that's what you did today.”
-- Ned Vizzini -
“The stuff adults tell you not to do is the easiest.”
-- Ned Vizzini -
“So now live for real, Craig. Live. Live. Live. Live.”
-- Ned Vizzini -
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“We look into each other's eyes as we shake. His are still full of death and horror, but in them I see my face reflected, and inside my tiny eyes inside his, I think I see some hope.”
-- Ned Vizzini
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