Susanna Kaysen Quotes

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

“Viscosity occurs on a cellular level. And so does velocity.In contrast to viscosity's cellular coma, velocity endows every platelet and muscle fiber with a mind of its own, a means of knowing and commenting on its own behavior. There is too much perception, and beyond the plethora of perceptions, a plethora of thoughts about the perceptions and about the fact of having perceptions. Digestion could kill you! What I mean is the unceasing awareness of the processes of digestion could exhaust you to death. And digestion is just an involuntary sideline to thinking, which is where the real trouble begins”

“Insanity comes in two basic varieties: slow and fast... Viscosity and Velocity are opposites, yet they can look the same. Viscosity causes the stillness of disinclination; velocity causes the stillness of fascination. An observer can't tell if a person is silent and still because inner life has stalled, or because inner life is transfixingly busy.”

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

“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.”

“Don’t ask me those questions! Don’t ask me what life means or how we know reality or why we have to suffer so much. Don’t talk about how nothing feels real, how everything is coated with gelatin and shining like oil in the sun. I don’t want to hear about the tiger in the corner or the Angel of Death or the phone calls from John the Baptist.”

“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 the line between sane and insane?”

“Without risk I have no fear, without any fear - what's the point, because I have no opportunity for success.(Gavin Kaysen)”

“She wasn't blotto, she was plotting.”

“Was everybody seeing this stuff and acting as though they weren't? Was insanity just a matter of dropping the act?”