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

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

I was trying to explain my situation to myself. My situation was that I was in pain and nobody knew it, even I had trouble knowing it. So I told myself, over and over, You are in pain. It was the only way I could get through to myself. I was demonstrating externally and irrefutably an inward condition.

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.

As far as I could see, life demanded skills I didn't have.

Whatever we call it - mind, character, soul - we like to think we possess something that is greater than the sum of our neurons and that animates us.

Confuse was the nurses' word for abuse.