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.

They always said on TV you could do anything you wanted, but here I was trying to do something and it wasn't working. I would never be able to do it.

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.

She doesn't want to end up like me. At least I'm giving someone an example not to follow.

Some of the most profound truths about us are things that we stop saying in the middle.

Yes, Doctor. I'll do what you say. I'll do what you all say.

I don't owe people anything, and I don't have to talk to them any more than I feel I need to.