Home > Work > Manic: A Memoir
1 " ...love is a chemical imbalance, too. That perilous highs and desperate lows and extravagant flurries of mood are not always symptoms of a broken mind, but signs of a beating heart. "
― , Manic: A Memoir
2 " [ ] manic sex isn't really intercourse. It's dicourse, just another way to ease the insatiable need for contact and communication. In place of words, I simply spoke with my skin. "
3 " It’s a little-known secret, and it should probably stay that way: attempting suicide usually jump-starts your brain chemistry. There must be something about taking all those pills that either floods the brain sufficiently or depletes it so completely that balance is restored. Whatever the mechanism, the result is that you emerge on the other side of the attempt with an awareness of what it means to be alive. Simple acts seem miraculous: you can stand transfixed for hours just watching the wind ruffle the tiny hairs along the top of your arm. And always, with every sensation, is the knowledge that you must have survived for a reason. You just can’t doubt it anymore. You must have a purpose, or you would have died. You have the rest of your life to discover what that purpose is. And you can’t wait to start looking. "
4 " I’ve never liked the telephone. It’s a noisy, shrill intruder. If it were up to me, I’d ban all phones and bring back visiting days, like in Jane Austen and Edith Wharton novels: "
5 " These flies were half the size of my fist. They came at you and stuck to you with a single-minded purpose you had to admire. We were hopelessly outnumbered, but we still slapped and kicked and karate-chopped ourselves until we reached an uneasy truce. "
6 " The world is essentially bipolar: driven to extremes but defined by flux. Saints are always just a stumble away from sinners. Nothing is absolute, not even death "
7 " Stories don't always have to end happily.. Sometimes it's just enough that they end. "
8 " True beauty is not the absence of ugliness, but the acceptance of it. "
9 " Was drug induced happy still happy? Was it the right kind of happy? Did it count? "
10 " The cruelest curse of the disease is also its most sacred promise: You will not feel this way forever. "
11 " The memory of sustenance is a terrible thing. Far worse, I think, than actual starving. Starving just kills you. Longing can gnaw away at you forever. "
12 " If you nurture it long enough, a lie can become a life. "
13 " Happiness is fine, in its season, but happiness out of season is a sure harbinger of doom. "
14 " There’s a very fine line, indistinguishable at times, between charismatic and crazy. "
15 " Comprendí que la autentica belleza no reside en la ausencia de fealdad sino en su aceptación. "
16 " True beauty, I realized,is not the absence of ugliness, but the acceptance of it. "
17 " I only know that my greatest victories have always been surrenders. "
18 " I wanted simple and sane. Barring that, I wanted nothing. I wanted numb. "
19 " It is a testament to the sharp beauty of a life lived in extremes. "
20 " Bridges are only kindling, I thought. I decided to torch this one. I "
