Susanna Kaysen
Susanna Kaysen
Susanna Kaysenis an American author, best known for her memoir Girl, Interrupted...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth11 November 1948
CountryUnited States of America
attend bunch cook home literary mysteries reviews shy stay
I don't have a whole bunch of literary connections. I don't write reviews or attend writer's conferences. I'm kind of shy and don't want to go to a party. I just want to stay home and read my murder mysteries and try to write and cook dinner.
depression crazy girl-interrupted
Lunatics are similar to designated hitters. Often an entire family is crazy, but since an entire family can't go into the hospital, one person is designated as crazy and goes inside. Then, depending on how the rest of the family is feeling that person is kept inside or snatched out, to prove something about the family's mental health.
girl-interrupted survival talent
I told her once I wasn’t good at anything. She told me survival is a talent.
suicide suicidal mean
Suicide is a form of murder - premeditated murder. It isn't something you do the first time you think of doing it. It takes getting used to. And you need the means, the opportunity, the motive. A successful suicide demands good organization and a cool head, both of which are usually incompatible with the suicidal state of mind.
skills
As far as I could see, life demanded skills I didn't have.
distance fall numbness
It's important to cultivate detachment. One way to do this is to practice imagining yourself dead, or in the process of dying. If there's a window, you must imagine your body falling out of that window. If there's a knife, you must imagine the knife piercing your skin. If there's a train coming, you must imagine your torso flattened under its wheels. These excercises are necessary to achieving the proper distance.
opposites fascination looks
Viscosity and velocity are opposites, yet they can look the same. Viscosity causes the stillness of disinclination, velocity causes the stillness of fascination. An observer can't tell if a person is silent and still because inner life has stalled or because inner life is transfixingly busy.
boredom feelings facts
My chronic feelings of emptiness and boredom came from the fact that I was living a life based on my incapacities, which were numerous.
sleep silent pleasure
When I was supposed to be awake, I was asleep. When I was supposed to sleep, I was silent. When a pleasure offered itself to me, I avoided it.
cheer-up views san-francisco
Every window in Alcatraz has a view of San Francisco.
suicide years peculiar
But when they were done, I wondered if there would be a next time. I felt good. I wasn’t dead, yet something was dead. Perhaps I’d managed my peculiar objective of partial suicide. I was lighter, airier than I’d been in years.
ambition expectations girl-interrupted
My family had a lot of characteristics - achievements, ambitions, talents, expectations - that all seemed to be recessive in me.
velocity busy life-is
An observer can't tell if a person is silent and still because inner life has stalled or because inner life is transfixingly busy.
depression crazy safe
... now I was safe, now I was really crazy, and nobody could take me out of there.