Ned Vizzini Quotes

The wall is home base. The wall won't move. If I stand at the wall, I won't be expected to move. This is what it means to be a wallflower. Now I understand.

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.

You deserve them because you chose them.

I was happy about different things. I was happy because someday I'd be walking across this bridge looking at this city, owning some piece of it, being valuable here.

There are only things that could have turned out different. You don't have any should or woulds in your life, see? You only have things that could have gone a different way. [ ... ] You never know what truly would have happened if you had done your shoulds and woulds. You life might have turned out worse, isn't that possible?

But most of all I feel my brain, up there taking in blood and looking out on the world and noticing humor and light and smells and dogs and every other thing in the world - everything in my life is all in my brain, really, so it would be natural that when my brain was screwed up, everything in my life would be.

Life's not about feeling better, it's about getting the job done.

My one friend is a screwup - a genius blessed with the most beautiful girl in the world, and he doesn't even know it.

So you're just going to give up?
That's the plan.

You see how the words work? They betray your mouth and walk away.

We wear our problems differently.

I know that you're not supposed to think about dancing - what is that stupid expression, Sing like no one's listening, dance like no one's watching? - whatever.

People don't make good Anchors, though, Craig. They change.

The party line is that some of the most profound truths about us are things that we stop saying in the middle, but i think they do it to make us feel important

If there is a next life, I hope it's in the past; I don't think the future will be any more handleable.
I think it's a little harsh how the END button is red.

I should be a success and I'm not and other people- younger people- are. Younger people than me are on TV and getting their lives in order. I'm still a nobody. When am I going to not be a nobody?

Nobody had told me I was common.

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.

Good. Because right now I don't have you pegged as a yuppie. You're something else. I'm not sure what you are, but I'm going to find out." "Cool.

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

That's worst than gonerreha, man!

Nothing us normal.

So now live for real, Craig. Live. Live. Live. Live.

When we got together we would start projects: an alarm clock torn apart and distributed over a wall, a stop-motion video of Lego people having sex, a Web site for pictures of toilets.

Its hard to talk when you want to kill yourself

Time is a person-made concept.

I can smell the sex on her. I hope she smells the love on me.

I picked Ember. After I started working with Mortin.' 'Why?' 'Because embers turn into flames.

I had hurt her feelings, I found out later; I didn't know I had that power.

We look into each other's eyes as we shake. His are still full of death and horror, but in them I see my face reflected, and inside my tiny eyes inside his, I think I see some hope.

And you shouldn't assume that everything is always about you.

I wish I was Dumbo the Octopus. Adapted to freezing deep-ocean temperatures, I'd flop around down there at
peace. The big concerns of my life would be what sort of bottom-coating slime to feed off of - that's not so different from now - plus I wouldn't have
any natural predators; then again, I don't have any now, and that hasn't done me a whole lot of good. But it suddenly makes sense: I'd like to be
under the sea, as an octopus.

I'm not afraid of dying, I'm afraid of living.

She puts on her poker face; I don't have any extra faces to put on, just the normal Craig face.

And I mouth into the phone, I love you, in case some of her cells pick up on the vibrations and it serves me well in the next life. If there is one. If there is a next life, I hope it's in the past; I don't think the future will be any more handleable.

Noelle: But I look like a freak now.
Craig: I told you, Noelle, everybody has problems. Some people just hide their crap better than others. But people aren't going to look at you and run away. They're going to look at you and think that they can talk to you, and that you'll understand, and that you're brave, and that you're strong. And you are. You're brave and strong. p.366-367

I jumped in the mosh pit, and some kid punched me in the chin, so I swung on ceiling pipes and kicked people in the head.

I'm fine. Well, I'm not fine - I'm here."
"Is there something wrong with that?"
"Absolutely.

Nia, it wasn't about you." "Are you sure?" I look down, and the answer is right there in my chest and it's resounding. "Yes. I have bigger problems than you.

Who hasn't thought about killing themselves, as a kid? How can you grow up in this world and not think about it? It's an option taken by a lot of successful people: Ernest Hemingway, Socrates, Jesus. Even before high school, I thought that it would be a cool thing to do if I ever got really famous. If I kept making my maps, for instance, and some art collector came across them and decided to make them worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, if I killed myself at the height of that, they'd be worth millions of dollars, and I wouldn't be responsible for them anymore. I'd have left behind something that spoke for itself.

It started with blogs; now, through social media, anyone who is active on the internet creates a digital projection of themselves for public consumption. We are all stars, all heroes in our own online productions. What does this do for our authenticity? It destroys it.

Once you have a kid, it's amazing how quickly people ask, 'So are you going to stop at just one?'

It's a huge thing, this Shift, just as big as I imagined. My brain doesn't want to think anymore; all of a sudden it wants to do.

Ski. Sled. Play basketball. Jog. Run. Run. Run. Run home. Run home and enjoy. Enjoy. Take these verbs and enjoy them. They're yours, Craig. You deserve them because you chose them. You could have left them all behind but you chose to stay here.
So now live for real, Craig. Live. Live. Live. Live.
Live.

If Bobby can get a place to live, I think, then I can get a life worth living.

I was in some one else's house, so I woke up early - at eight - with that crazy sleeping-at-someone-else's-house energy.

And that was the closest I've ever come to an epiphany.

I was still getting 93's, but what the hell, someone had to get them.

Forget the midlife crisis," I say. "It's all about the sixth-life crisis.

IT's all about being able to live a sustainable life. I don't think I'm going to be able to have one.

There are better versions of me, Jeremy. It's not like with people. With people you can argue and have tests and music reviews and wars to decide who's better, but with software, it's pretty clear. I get evolved beyond my version number, and then I'm useless.

That's what gets me through the day. Knowing that I could do it. That I'm strong enough to do it and I can get it done.

Life can't be cured, but it can be managed.

A working brain is probably a lot like a map, where anybody can get from one place to another on the freeways. It's the nonworking brains that get blocked, that have dead ends, that are under construction like mine.

What happened when you woke up?" "I was having a dream. I don't know what it was, but when I woke up, I had this awful realization that I was awake. It hit me like a brick in the groin." "Like a brick in the groin, I see." "I didn't want to wake up. I was having a much better time asleep. And that's really sad. It was almost like a reverse nightmare, like when you wake up from a nightmare you're so relieved. I woke up into a nightmare." "And what is that nightmare, Craig?" "Life." "Life is a nightmare." "Yes.

A doctor comes into 22. She has long, dark hair and a pudgy face and bright green eyes. "Hey." "I'm Dr. Data." "Dr. Data?" "Yes." Huh. I want to ask her if she's an android, but that wouldn't be very respectful; and besides, I'm not up to it.

I hug her one more time and pull her down to the bed. And in my mind, I rise up from the bed and look down on us, and look down at everybody else in this hospital who might have the good fortune of holding a pretty girl right now, and then at the entire Brooklyn block, and then the neighborhood, and then Brooklyn, and then New York City, and then the whole Tri-State Area, and then this little corner of America- with laser eyes I can see into every house- and then the whole country and the hemisphere and now the whole stupid world, everyone in every bed, couch, futon, chair, hammock, love seat, and tent, everyone kissing or touching eachother ... and i know that i'm the happiest of all of them.

You all right, man?'
This should be my name. I could be like a super hero: You All Right Man.
Ah ... ' I stumble.
Don't bug Craig,' Ronny is like. 'He's in the Craig zone. He's Craig-ing out.

Every tounge bit had another word to say.

Sometimes I wish I had an easy answer for why I'm depressed.

Do you have difficulty sleeping?"
"Sometimes not. When I do it's bad, though. I lie there thinking about how everything I've done is a failure, death and failure, and there's no hope for me except being homeless, because I'm never going to be able to hold a job because everyone else is so much smarter.

"Sometimes" title="Ned Vizzini Quotes: Do you have difficulty sleeping?"
"Sometimes" width="913px" height="515px" loading="lazy"/>

I like how you don't hide your problems like everyone else, and I don't have to hide mine when I'm around you.

I found myself jealous of the people who wrote the books. They were dead and they were still taking up my time. Who did they think they were?

A lot of the books that I grew up reading were pretty brutal, like the 'Redwall' books.

I'm not doing well in terms of being a functional human.

It was almost like a reverse nightmare, like when you wake up from a nightmare, you're so relieved. I woke up into a nightmare."
"And what is that nightmare, Craig?"
"Life.

The sweating is awful. It's not as bad as the not eating, but it's weird - cold sweat, all over my forehead, having to be wiped off every two minutes, smelling like skin concentrate. People notice. It's one of the few things people notice.

Up next is Noelle.
'Hey, girl!'
'Don't you dare start calling me that. This is very nice of you to do.

The Shift is coming. The Shift has to be coming. Because if you keep living like this you'll die.

I've started to think it must just be chemistry, in which case we're looking for the Shift and we haven't found it yet.

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

Depression starts slow.

Let's concentrate on our discussion of things that make us happy, Humble, says the psychologist.

I made that test my bitch.

They're sort of ancillary, 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.

I can't function here anymore. I mean in life: I can't function in this life. I'm no better off than when I was in bed last night, with one difference: when I was in my own bed - or my mom's - I could do something about it; now that I'm here I can't do anything. I can't ride my bike to the Brooklyn Bridge; I can't take a whole bunch of pills and go for the good sleep; the only thing I can do is crush my head in the toilet seat, and I still don't even know if that would work. They take away your options and all you can do is live, and it's just like Humble said: I'm not afraid of dying; I'm afraid of living. I was afraid before, but I'm afraid even more now that I'm a public joke. The teachers are going to hear from the students. They'll think I'm trying to make an excuse for bad work.

They've spent alot of money on me. I'm ashamed.

A novel wouldn't be a book if there weren't some flights of fancy on the part of the author, stopping time to examine things, or to tell a joke.

The stuff adults tell you not to do is the easiest.

People have always asked me why I'm drawn to material about kids, and for me, it's - I remember being at that age and feeling completely and utterly powerless. You know, there's so many things you wanna do and so many things you're told you can't do.

After college, I went through my own shit and decided that all physical suffering in the world couldn't compare to mental anguish. And when I got myself, I decided to help other people.

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.

We tend to have things a little bit easier than girls. And we tend to assume therefore that the world was built for us, and that we're, you know, the culmination of everything that came before us. And then we get told that having a little bit of this attitude is called balls, and that balls are good, and we kind of take it from there

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.

Do you even know who the enemy is?" "I think ... it's me".

Sometimes we call those girls sluts. Do you think she had a boyfriend when she was eight?

I'm not afraid of dying; I'm only afraid of living,

You are blessed with a good mind. You just have to have confidence in it and talk when people call on you.

Of course I wasn't abused. If I were; things would be so simple. I'd have a reason to for being in a shrinks office. I'd have a justification and something to work on. The world wasn't going to give me something that tidy.

Yes. Now, you might not want to become so friendly with your fellow patients on the floor." "Why not?" "That can distract people from the healing process." "How?" "This is a hospital. It's not a place to make friends. Friends are wonderful, but this place is about you and making you feel better." "But ... " I fidget. "I respect Humble. I respect Bobby. I have more respect for them after a day and a half than I do for most people ... in the world, really." "Just be careful of forming close relationships, Craig. Focus on yourself.

The people are Anchors," I say.
"People don't make good Anchors, though, Craig. They change. The people here are going to change. The patients are going to leave. You can't rely on them.

See, when you mess something up, you learn for the next time. It's when people compliment you that you're in trouble. That means they expect you to keep it up.

That's all I can do. I'll keep at it and hope it gets better.

I wish the world were like this, if I just woke up and marked the food I'd be eating and it came to me later in the day. I suppose it is like that, except you have to pay for whatever you want to eat, so maybe what I'm asking for is communism, but I think it's actually deeper than communism - I'm asking for simplicity, for purity and ease of choice and no pressure. I'm asking for something that no politics is going to provide, something that probably you only get in preschool. I'm asking for preschool.

They take away your options and all you can do is live, and it's just like Humble said: I'm not afraid of dying; I'm afraid of living. I was afraid before, but I'm afraid even more now that I'm a public joke.

Once the music starts he goes right into the Jimmy-verse, banging against his washboard and letting it all hang out in a piercing falsetto that's surprisingly on key. The thing is, he doesn't sing "I Shot the Sheriff." He sings only one phrase: "How sweet it is!

One thing I've learnt recently: how to think nothing. Here's the trick: don't have any interest in the world around you, don't have any hope for the future, and be warm.

I wasn't going to have enough money to pay for a Good Lifestyle, which meant I'd feel ashamed, which meant I'd get depressed, and that was the big one because I knew what that did to me: it made it so I wouldn't get out of bed, which led to the ultimate thing - homelessness. If you can't get out of bed for long enough, people come and take your bed away.

Like I'm on the verge of just blowing up. All the stress and pressure and anxiety just bubbling up.

I didn't want to be part of some trend. I wasn't doing this for a fashion statement