Quotes from book

It's Kind of a Funny Story

“I didn't want to wake up. I was having a much better time asleep. And that's really sad.”

“It’s tough to get out of bed; I know that myself. You can lie there for an hour and a half without thinking anything, just worrying about what the day holds and knowing that you won’t be able to deal with it.”

“(…) Since I was a kid."
"Which you refer to as 'back when you were happy.'"
"Right.”

“I wanted to tell people, "My depression is acting up today" as an excuse for not seeing them, but I never managed to pull it off.”

“I feel dead, wasted, awful, broken and useless. It's not the kind of feeling you forget.”

“The therapists told you that you needed to find happiness within yourself before you got it from another person.”

“My family shouldn't have to put up with me. They're good people, solid, happy. Sometimes when I'm with them I think I'm on television.”

“I have a system with bathrooms. I spend a lot of time in them. They are sanctuaries, public places of peace spaced throughout the world for people like me.”

“Dr. Barney stared at me, his lips puckered. What was he so serious about? Who hasn’t thought about killing themselves, as a kid? How can you grow up in this world and not think about it?”

“I wasn’t gifted. Mom was wrong. I was just smart and I worked hard. I had fooled myself into thinking that was something important to the rest of the world. Other people were complicit in this ruse. Nobody had told me I was common.”

“I can't eat and I can't sleep. I'm not doing well in terms of being a functional human, you know?”

“You shouldn't be able to be alive and you are. You want to trade?”

“I had fooled myself into thinking that I was something important to the rest of the world.”

“She's pretty." (It's amazing how girls can say this and make it the most withering insult.)”

“I waste at least an hour every day lying in bed. Then I waste time pacing. I waste time thinking. I waste time being quiet and not saying anything because I'm afraid I'll stutter.”

“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.”

“Things to do today:
1) Breathe in.
2) Breathe out.”

“Depression starts slow.”

“So why am I depressed? That's the million-dollar question, baby, the Tootsie Roll question; not even the owl knows the answer to that one. I don't know either. All I know is the chronology.”