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Elizabeth Wurtzel

Elizabeth Wurtzel Quotes

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Famous Elizabeth Wurtzel Quotes

“It is so hard to learn to put sadness in perspective so hard to understand that it is a feeling that comes in degrees, it can be a candle burning gently and harmlessly in your home, or it can be a full-fledged forest fire that destroy almost everything and is controlled by almost nothing. It can also be so much in-between”

HardFeelingsHomeFireSadnessPerspectiveDepressionDegreesForestsBurningControlledCandleForest FiresCandles Burning
Book:Prozac Nation: Young and Depressed in America
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“I mean, if you were to find a shattered mirror, find all the pieces, all the shards and all the tiny chips, and have whatever skill and patience it took to put all that broken glass back together so that it was complete once again, the restored mirror would still be spiderwebbed with cracks, it would still be a useless glued version of its former self, which could show only fragmented reflections of anyone looking into it. Some things are beyond repair. And that was me.”

IfsMeanStillsSelfShowsTogetherPiecesBrokenSkillsReflectionMirrorsGlassesTinyVersionsFormerUselessCracksChipsShatteredBack TogetherFragmentedBroken Glass
Author:Elizabeth Wurtzel
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“It doesn’t matter how many years go by, how much therapy I embark on, how much I try to achieve that elusive thing known as perspective, which is supposed to put all past wrongs into their rightful and diminished place, that happy place where all the talk is of lessons learned and inner peace. No one will ever understand the potency of my memories, which are so solid and vivid that I don’t need a psychiatrist to tell me they are driving me crazy. My subconscious has not buried them, my superego has not restrained them. They are front and center, they are going on right now.”

NeedsTryingYearsMatterPastMemoriesKnownCrazyAchieveFrontsPerspectiveLessonsRight NowDrivingInner PeaceTherapyBuriedSubconsciousVividPsychiatristElusivePotencyLesson LearnedDrive Me CrazyHappy PlaceSuperegoPast Wrongs
Book:Prozac Nation: Young and Depressed in America
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“I have studiously tried to avoid ever using the word 'madness' to describe my condition. Now and again, the word slips out, but I hate it. 'Madness' is too glamorous a term to convey what happens to most people who are losing their minds. That word is too exciting, too literary, too interesting in its connotations, to convey the boredom, the slowness, the dreariness, the dampness of depression.”

PeopleMindHappensHateTermInterestingConditionsDepressionLosingExcitingI HateMadnessBoredomSlipsGlamorousConnotationSlownessProzacProzac Nation
Book:Prozac Nation: Young and Depressed in America
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“The desire to be seen as superior and singular- and, conversely, but similarly, inferior and individual, is a big topic...They have a term for the syndrome- it is called terminal uniqueness...we all refuse to be part of the crowd, to walk in the middle of the road in the safety of others. We all think were special. But the problem is, as I point out to Dr. Singer all the time, I actually am special.”

ThinkingProblemBigsDesireIndividualTermWalksMiddleSpecialSafetyCrowdsRefuseSingersSuperiorsUniquenessInferiorsDrsTopicsSyndromesTerminalMiddle Of The Road
Author:Elizabeth Wurtzel
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“I could not bear the deep freeze settling around my bones at the thought that yet another attempt to get out of my life alive would end in disappointment. Time became palpable and viscous. Every minute, every second, every nanosecond, wrapped around my spine so that my nerves tightened and ached. I faded into abstraction. A self-generated narcosis created a painful blank where my mind used to be.”

MindEndsSelfUsedAliveMinutesBearsPainfulDisappointmentBonesUsed To BeSettlingNervesBlankAbstractionFreezeSpineFadedEvery Second
Book:Prozac Nation: Young and Depressed in America
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“Jesus, I wondered, what do you do with pain so bad it has no redeeming value? It cannot even be alchemized into art, into words, into something you can chalk up to an interesting experience because the pain itself, its intensity, is so great that it has woven itself into your system so deeply that there is no way to objectify or push it outside or find its beauty within. That is the pain I’m feeling now. Its so bad, its useless. The only lesson I will ever derive from this pain is how bad pain can be.”

WayArtFeelingsPainValuesJesusInterestingLessonsUselessIntensityWovenRedeemingChalkProzacBeauty Within
Book:Prozac Nation: Young and Depressed in America
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“Depression is all about if you loved me you would. As in, if you loved me you would stop doing your schoolwork, stop going out drinking with your friends on a Saturday night, stop accepting starring roles in theater productions, and stop doing everything besides sitting here by my side and passing me Kleenex and aspirin while I lie and creak and cry and drown myself and you in my misery.”

IfsLyingNightSidesAcceptingRolesCrySittingTheaterMiseryDrinkingProductionsPassingPassingsGoing OutSaturdaySaturday NightAspirinSchoolworkKleenex
Book:Prozac Nation: Young and Depressed in America
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“Taking a hypersensitive approach to life had come to seem so much more pure and honest then joining the ranks of the numb masses who could let it all slide by. What I stopped realizing was that if you feel everything intensely, ultimately you feel nothing at all. Everything registers at the same decibel.”

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Book:Prozac Nation: Young and Depressed in America
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“And it seemed hard to believe that these people who were so close to me couldn’t see how desperate I was, or if they could they didn’t care enough to do anything about it, or if they cared enough to do anything about it they didn’t believe there was anything they could do, not knowing—or not wanting to know—that their belief might have been the thing that made the difference.”

PeopleIfsKnowsBelieveHas BeensMadeHardEnoughMightCareBeliefDifferencesKnowingDesperateNot KnowingMight Have BeenHard To Believe
Book:Prozac Nation: Young and Depressed in America
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“Nothing in my life ever seemed to fade away or take its rightful place among the pantheon of experiences that constituted my eighteen years. It was all still with me, the storage space in my brain crammed with vivid memories, packed and piled like photographs and old dresses in my grandmother’s bureau. I wasn’t just the madwoman in the attic — I was the attic itself. The past was all over me, all under me, all inside me.”

YearsStillsPastMemoriesSpaceBrainDressesPhotographGrandmotherFadesMy GrandmotherVividEighteenFade AwayStorageAtticsProzac NationPantheonVivid MemoriesStorage Space
Book:Prozac Nation: Young and Depressed in America
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“The measure of our mindfulness, the touchstone for sanity in this society, is our level of productivity, our attention to responsibility, our ability to plain and simple hold down a job. If you're still at the point when you're even just barely going through the motions--showing up at work, paying the bills--you are still okay or okay enough. A desire not to acknowledge sadness in ourselves or those close to us--better known these days as denial, is such a strong urge that plenty of people prefer to think that until you are actually flying out of a window, you don't have a problem.”

PeopleIfsThinkingStillsEnoughProblemJobsDesireStrongSimpleAbilityLevelsAttentionResponsibilityKnownSadnessMindfulnessWindowOkayBillsProductivityFlyingPlentyDenialThese DaysAcknowledgeUrgesSanityShowing UpThis SocietyTouchstonesPlain And Simple
Book:Prozac Nation: Young and Depressed in America
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“I start to get the feeling that something is really wrong. Like all the drugs put together – the lithium, the Prozac, the desipramine, and Desyrel that I take to sleep at night – can no longer combat whatever it is that was wrong with me in the first place. I feel like a defective model.”

FeelsFirstsFeelingsTogetherNightSleepDrugModelsCombatDefectiveProzacLithium
Book:Prozac Nation: Young and Depressed in America
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“The brief relief of seeing other people when I leave my room turns into a desperate need to be alone, and then being alone turns into a terrible fear that I will have no friends, I will be alone in this world and in my life. I will eventually be so crazy from this black wave, which seems to be taking over my head with increasing frequency, that one day I will just kill myself, not for any great, thoughtful existential reasons, but because I need immediate relief.”

PeopleWorldNeedsReasonSeemsTurnsBlackRoomsSeeingCrazyThis WorldTerribleOne DayWaveDesperateThoughtfulReliefExistentialFrequencyNo Friends
Book:Prozac Nation: Young and Depressed in America
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“But day after day of depression, the kind that doesn’t seem to merit carting me off to a hospital but allows me to sit here on this stoop in summer camp as if I were normal, day after day wearing down everybody who gets near me. My behavior seems, somehow, not acute enough for them to know what to do with me, though I’m just enough of a mess to be driving everyone around me crazy.”

IfsKnowsKindEnoughSeemsCrazyBehaviorNormalSummerDrivingMessMeritHospitalsCampsStoopsSummer Camp
Book:Prozac Nation: Young and Depressed in America
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