1
2
3
5
8
12
20
33
52
83
133
213
340
543
867
1384
2208
3346
3522
4052
4053
4054
4055
4056
5443
5619
6757
7581
8098
8422
8625
8752
8832
8882
8913
8932
8945
8953
8957
8960
8962
8963
8964
8965
▲
▼
| Link | Quote | Stars | Tags | Author |
| cb01fdf | Something had been peeled back, a covering or shell that works to protect us. I couldn't decide whether the covering was something on me or something attached to every thing in the world. It didn't matter, really; wherever it had been, it wasn't there anymore. | Susanna Kaysen | ||
| d436d03 | Their love story unfolded and then folded up again in Cambridge, as I watched and took mental notes and learned nothing, naturally, because the heart is unteachable. | Susanna Kaysen | ||
| 4e1fad0 | She rushed out, because the darkness in the theater was too much when combined with the darkness in her head . | Susanna Kaysen | ||
| 7ce35ec | I've gone back to the Frick since then to look at her and at the two other Vermeers. Vermeers, after all, are hard to come by, and the one in Boston has been stolen. The other two are self-contained paintings. The people in them are looking at each other -- the lady and her maid, the soldier and his sweetheart. Seeing them is peeking at them through a hole in a wall. And the wall is made of light -- that entirely credible yet unreal Vermeer.. | Susanna Kaysen | ||
| 1304698 | Why I am opposed to antidepressants. Because I think depression has something to tell me. Because often depression is an appropriate reaction. Because I am terrified of changing the functioning of my brain in any way. Because I believe depression is "me", and that without it I would not be "me". Because I can't imagine my life without the time off I get from periodic depression. These are the typical idiotic reasons people give for not want.. | Susanna Kaysen | ||
| 3eb23a2 | sa's smell (the fragrance of a beautiful man) is what I miss the most. [...] Like a virus his smell entered me and changed my cells, slowly, over years, until they craved only that smell, which was their oxygen. | Susanna Kaysen | ||
| b14362a | Can human beings love each other? Must we always love an image we've labored over secretly, never love the living soul with all its mire and murk? | Susanna Kaysen | ||
| 68e1443 | But something about the static truth of numbers hurt my brain. Numbers felt sharp. Words felt elastic and springy. Language had an unpredictable, quicksilver quality, saying one thing but meaning something else, varying from place to place but maintaining (against all evidence) that it was the same language. Thinking about words was ticklish and amusing. It was also easy, as if they fit into slots and patterns prepared for them in my mind. .. | Susanna Kaysen | ||
| 364e121 | He would take refuge in a homey understanding of Faroese ways only to be slapped back to an uncomfortable position as an American by some terrible smell: uncomfortable because he could no more now imagine himself standing at an oak door with a brass knocker, wearing a tie and holding a bottle of Medoc, than he could picture eating rotten meat. He was floating around in cultural hyperspace; nothing felt right. | Susanna Kaysen | ||
| 5ef67af | Kaysen elaborates through parts of the book on her thoughts about how mental illness is treated. She explains that families who are willing to pay the rather high costs of hospitalization do so to prove their own sanity. Once one member of the family is hospitalized, it becomes easier for the rest of the family to distance themselves from the problem and to create a clear boundary between the sane and the insane. Recognizing a family member.. | family financial hospitalization hospitalization-as-treatment mental-illness sanity wikipedia | Susanna Kaysen | |
| 6d780d3 | That's because the analysts are writing about a country they call Mind and the neuroscientists are reporting from a country they call Brain. | Susanna Kaysen | ||
| 7d6c470 | I wasn't convinced I was crazy, though I feared I was. Some people say that having any conscious opinion on the matter is a mark of sanity, but I'm not sure that's true. I still think about it. I'll always have to think about it. | psychology sanity | Susanna Kaysen | |
| 0e485b0 | If I who was previously revolting am now this far from my crazy self, how much further are you who were never revolting, and how much deeper your revulsion? | Susanna Kaysen | ||
| c2c234f | The shimmering, ever-shifting borderline, like all boundaries beckons and asks to be crossed. | Susanna Kaysen | ||
| 68ffd27 | a tidal wave of blackness broke over her head. The entire world was obliterated-for a few minutes. She knew she had gone crazy. She looked around the theater to see if it had happened to everyone, but all the other people were engrossed in the movie. She rushed out, because the darkness in the theater was too much combined with the darkness in her head. | Susanna Kaysen | ||
| a93d41b | Twenty-five chocolate chip cookies would be the perfect dinner. | Susanna Kaysen | ||
| 0ba44a1 | To properly engage in magical thinking, I find you have to think of every possible ghastly scenario. That's the only way you outsmart fate. | A.J. Jacobs | ||
| 5c0633b | Lightning goes up. It shoots right up from the ground and into the cloud. This what the encyclopedia says in the section on climate and weather. I reread this passage a couple of times to make sure I hadn't gone batty--but no, lightning goes up. | A.J. Jacobs | ||
| f0bc3d0 | Probably 90 percent of our life decisions are powered by the twin engines of inertia and laziness. | A.J. Jacobs | ||
| f5022bb | My immune system has always been overly welcoming of germs. It's far too polite, the biological equivalent of a southern hostess inviting y'all nice microbes to stay awhile and have some artichoke dip. | A.J. Jacobs | ||
| 38f7f26 | Incidentally, I spent some time on the Purell website, where you can find a list of ninety-nine places germs lurk (in-flight magazines, movie tickets, gas-pump keypads, hotel room a/c controls, and on and on). It's hilarious and terrifying. The only place they don't mention is the Purell dispensers themselves. You know they're coated with germs. It's one of health's cruelest catch-22s. | A.J. Jacobs | ||
| ab95669 | I figured the government wouldn't let poison flow from the taps. But in general, I'm too trusting of the government. I'm the polar opposite of the Tea Partiers. I have no problem with a nanny state. But in this case, the nanny state has been chatting on the cell phone and ignoring the baby as it plays with matches. | A.J. Jacobs | ||
| f5eebd9 | As I was passing this man on the street, he looked at me, snarled, and gave me the finger. What was going through his mind? Does he hate shepherds? Or religion? Did he just read Richard Dawkins's book? | A.J. Jacobs | ||
| e523e7a | You cannot stop religion from evolving. | A.J. Jacobs | ||
| cbb0de6 | I know the name of Turkey's leading avant-guard publication. I know that John Quincy Adams married for money. I know that Bud Abbott was a double-crosser, that absentee ballots are very popular in Ireland, and that dwarves have prominent buttocks. | A.J. Jacobs | ||
| e1bea94 | Paintings! They're like TV, but they don't move. | A.J. Jacobs | ||
| 7eafe8c | On the other hand, if you're too delusionally optimistic, you'll be unbearable. You'll refuse to save money or make backup plans. You'll invade foreign countries and expect to be greeted as liberators. Like everything else in health, you need balance. | A.J. Jacobs | ||
| e582690 | The outer affects the inner. | religion ritual | A.J. Jacobs | |
| ec734c2 | Here's why I'm a fan of thanking our lucky stars every day: it helps with forgiving yourself your failures; it cuts down on celebrity worship and boosts humility; and, perhaps most important, it makes us more compassionate. | A.J. Jacobs | ||
| 72e12f2 | After decimating several vegetables, I decide juicing is my favorite form of food preparation. There's something perversely appealing about subjecting an innocent plant to that much violence. | A.J. Jacobs | ||
| d57abe0 | So, if weight loss is your goal, and you have impressive self-control, raw food is something to consider. | A.J. Jacobs | ||
| 9d3e162 | The strange fact that out of millions of people in the world, your mother and father met and decided to get married to each other. And out of the millions of sperm, that the one with your genes was the one that made it to the egg and fertilised the egg. I'll never forget it. | creation egg father genes giving-birth marriage millions mother pregnant sperm | A.J. Jacobs | |
| c20fa0a | Images are taking over, and writers are a dying breed. The Norman Mailers of today are reduced to writing pun-filled captions for paparazzi photos. Blogs--which were threatening enough to professional writers--are being replaced by video blogs. We writers need to embraced the Second Commandment as our rallying cry for the importance of words. In a literally biblical world, all publications would look like the front page of the Wall Street J.. | page-106 second-commandment writing | A.J. Jacobs | |
| 55c15ff | The Bible is so strange, so utterly bizarre, no human brain could have come up with it. | A.J. Jacobs | ||
| 0cb191e | Which just goes to prove. Not everybody can be Herman Cappachino. Whatever that means. | A.J. Jacobs | ||
| da68cd6 | There were one quadrillion nations in the Universe, but the nation Dwayne Hoover and Kilgore Trout belonged to was the only one with a national anthem which was gibberish sprinkled with question marks. Here | Kurt Vonnegut | ||
| 17d662c | In 1777 there was a women's counterpart to the Boston Tea Party--a "coffee party," described by Abigail Adams in a letter to her husband John: One eminent, wealthy, stingy merchant (who is a bachelor) had a hogshead of coffee in his store, which he refused to sell the committee under six shillings per pound. A number of females, some say a hundred, some say more, assembled with a cart and trunks, marched down to the warehouse, and demanded .. | Howard Zinn | ||
| da4baf9 | Independence Day] will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the ot.. | John Adams | ||
| dedaa43 | Your father's zeal for books will be one of the last desires which will quit him," Abigail observed to John Quincy" | David McCullough | ||
| 7270cb9 | It may amuse you to hear a Story. A few days ago, in Company with Dr Zubly, somebody said, there was nobody on our side but the Almighty. The Dr. who is a Native of Switzerland, and speaks but broken English, quickly replied 'Dat is enough. | John Adams | ||
| cef3923 | The author perceives nuances of Abigail Adams' character in the occasional errors she makes in readily quoting John Milton. Rather than giving the observer a reason to quibble, they are evidence that she had absorbed Milton's works enough to feel comfortable quoting them from memory. | intellect openness perception perspective | David McCullough | |
| d8d08b0 | I can do that, Your Grace." The abigail apparently expected him to relinquish his duties. Adam silently shook his head, softly rubbing more blood from her ankle. "It is not seemly for a duke to be acting as a lady's maid or a physician, Your Grace." "Perhaps not." Adam didn't take his eyes from his task. "But a husband is charged with keeping his wife in sickness, is he not?" "Yes, Your Grace." The maid sounded more confused than anything e.. | Sarah M. Eden | ||
| 1b4284b | an independency. And, by the way, in the new code of laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make, I desire you would remember the ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the husbands. Remember, all men would be tyrants if they could. If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not h.. | John Adams | ||
| 3197a83 | Adam swallowed thickly. "Can you see the future?" "I see many futures." "Many?" "As many futures as there are choices." "Do I defeat the Death Collector in any of them?" "No." A wave of helplessness rolled over him. So all this was pointless. The Collective was going to win after all. He couldn't breathe. He braced his hands on his knees as a devastating roar filled his head. Abigail clucked with her tongue. "Look at you. So arrogant. So se.. | Erin Kellison |