Girl Interrupted Quotes:

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

- Susanna Kaysen

topic: Girl Interrupted, Survival, Talent

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

- Susanna Kaysen

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

topic: Girl Interrupted, Sorrow, Sound

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

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

topic: Girl Interrupted, Skins, Praying, Interrupted

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

topic: Girl, Morning, Jobs, Girl Interrupted

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

- Susanna Kaysen

topic: Girl, Stress, Numbness, Depersonalization, Girl Interrupted

To go from Girl, Interrupted, where I had to cry every day, to a TV show like West Wing where I get to laugh and joke around every day, has been a welcome relief.

- Elisabeth Moss

topic: Girl, Tv Shows, Wings, Girl Interrupted

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.

- Susanna Kaysen

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

topic: Hurt, Trying, Want, Girl Interrupted, Self Injury

Have you ever confused a dream with life? Or stolen something when you have the cash? Have you ever been blue? Or thought your train moving while sitting still? Maybe I was just crazy. Maybe it was the 60's. Or maybe I was just a girl... interrupted.

- Susanna Kaysen

topic: Girl, Dream, Crazy, Sitting Still, Girl Interrupted

Crazy isn't being broken, or swallowing a dark secret. It's you or me, amplified.

- Winona Ryder

topic: Depression, Crazy, Dark, Dark Secrets, Darkest Secrets

Was insanity just a matter of dropping the act?

- Susanna Kaysen

topic: Insanity, Matter, Dropping, Girl Interrupted

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 of that 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 excercises are necessary to achieving the proper distance.

- Susanna Kaysen

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

topic: Distance, Fall, Numbness, Torso, Girl Interrupted

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 thought or did was immediately drawn into the debate. Made a stupid remark--why not kill myself? Missed the bus--better put an end to it all. Even the good got in there. I liked that movie--maybe I shouldn't kill myself.

- Susanna Kaysen

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

topic: Stupid, Thinking, People, 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

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

topic: Children, Lying, Crazy, Dark Secrets, Crazy People

Guns aren't lawful; nooses give; gas smells awful. So you might as well live.

- Dorothy Parker

source: "Resume" l. 5 (1926)

topic: Suicide, Depressing, Gun, Suicidal Thoughts, Girl Interrupted

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

- Susanna Kaysen

topic: Ambition, Expectations, Achievement, Girl Interrupted

Every window in Alcatraz has a view of San Francisco.

- Susanna Kaysen

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

topic: Cheer Up, Views, San Francisco, Girl Interrupted, Alcatraz

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

- Susanna Kaysen

topic: Jobs, World, Girl Interrupted, Interrupted

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

source: FaceBook post by Susanna Kaysen from Mar 22, 2014

topic: Suicide, Suicidal, Mean, Girl Interrupted, Good Organization

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

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

topic: Suicide, Kitchen, Tragedy, Girl Interrupted

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

source: FaceBook post by Susanna Kaysen from Mar 08, 2016

topic: Character, Wrinkles, Hair, Girl Interrupted, Scar Tissue

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

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

topic: Depression, Crazy, Feelings, Designated Hitter, Girl Interrupted

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

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

topic: Lying, Gun, Veins, Girl Interrupted

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

- Susanna Kaysen

topic: Suicide, Spring, Wind, Girl Interrupted

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

- Susanna Kaysen

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

topic: Inspirational, Crazy, Littles, Girl Interrupted

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

topic: Writing, Men, Thinking, Stale, Girl Interrupted

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

- Susanna Kaysen

topic: Growing Up, Believe, Secret, Girl Interrupted

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.

- Susanna Kaysen

topic: America, Wind, Columbus, Girl Interrupted

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

topic: Girl, Lying, Light, Overcast, Girl Interrupted

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

topic: Girl, Would Be, Might, Girl Interrupted

Being crasy doesn't mean to be broken...It is you and me amplified", Girl, Interrupted

- Susanna Kaysen

topic: Girl, Mean, Broken, Girl Interrupted