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. You hurt yourself on the outside to try to kill the thing on the inside.

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

A successful suicide demands good organization and a cool head, both of which are usually incompatible with the suicidal state of mind.

What is it about meter and cadence and rhythm that makes their makers mad?

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

For many of us, the hospital was as much a refuge as it was a prison. Though we were cut off from the world and all the trouble we enjoyed stirring up out there, we were also cut off from the demands and expectations that had driven us crazy. What could be expected of us now that we were stowed away in a loony bin?

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.