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101 " ...never touching, never talking, just smiling and keeping our eyes locked. "
― Ned Vizzini , It's Kind of a Funny Story
102 " I want my brain to slide back into the slot it was meant to be in, rest there the way it did before the fall of last year, back when I was young, witty, and my teachers said I had incredible promise. "
103 " Misfortune is no excuse for cruelty. "
― Ned Vizzini , The Other Normals
104 " But I find God to be an ineffectual shrink. He adopts the “do nothing” method of therapy. You tell him your problems and he, ah, does nothing. "
105 " Just thoughts of what I have to do. Homework. And it comes up to my brain and I look at it and think "I'm not going to be able to do that" and then it cycles back down and the next one comes up. And then things come up like "You should be doing more extracurricular activities" because I should, I don't do near enough, and that gets pushed down and it's replaced with the big one: "What college are you going into, Craig?" which is like the doomsday question. "
106 " I'm glad you came here and got the help you needed," Neil says, and he shakes my hand in that way that people do in here to remind themselves that you're the patient and they're the doctor/volunteer/ employee. They like you, and they genuinely want you to do better, but when they shake your hand you feel that distance, that slight disconnect because they know that you're still broken somewhere, that you might snap at any moment. "
107 " Sometimes I just think depression's one way of coping with the world. Like, some people get drunk, some people do drugs, some people get depressed. "
108 " The thought trail one another in my brain running from the back up to the front and dripping down again under my chin: I'm no one; I'll never make it in my life; I'm about to get revealed as a fake, I've already been revealed as a fake but I don't know it yet; I know I'm a fake and pretend not to. All the good thoughts - the normal ones, the ones that have occasionally surfaced since last fall - scramble out the front of my brain in terror of what lives in my neck and spine. This is the worst it'll ever be "
109 " They're sort of ancillary anyway, friends. I mean, they're important -- everybody knows that; the TV tells you so -- but they come and go. You lose one friend, you pick up another. "
110 " Doc, I'm not afraid of dying; I'm only afraid of living, and I want to put this bayonet through my stomach, "
111 " Time is a person-made concept. "
112 " That's the number one thing I hear about humans. You have all these choices, so you're confused all the time, and you think so much that you're never happy. "
113 " I know a lot of famous people didn't do well at school, like James Brown; he dropped out in fifth grade to be an entertainer, I respect that... but that's not going to be me. I'm not going to be able to do anything but work as hard as possible all the time and compete with everyone I know all the time to make it. "
114 " Where are you supposed to put your arms when you dance? It’s like the Universal Question. I guess you’re supposed to put them around someone. "
115 " But some people have to get lucky just to live. And I never knew I could make anybody lucky. "
116 " Dad nods, looks me dead in the eyes; slowly and regretfully, he banishes all the smiling and joking from his face, and for once he's just my dad, watching his son who has fallen so low. "
117 " I eat not because I want to, not because I have to overcome anything, not to prove myself to anyone, but because it's there. I eat because that's what people do. And somehow when the food is put in front of you by an institution, when there's a large gray force behind it and you don't have to thank anyone for it, you have the animal instinct to make it disappear, "
118 " My one friend is a screwup—a genius blessed with the most beautiful girl in the world, and he doesn’t even know it. "
119 " How can you live without stars? What keeps you from thinking about yourself all the time? "
120 " Yes, Doctor. I'll do what you say. I'll do what you all say. "