It’s being a grown up, which I never figured out how to do, scrubbing the tub, and remembering to eat and shampoo my hair. It’s the basics: I can write a whole book, but I cannot handle the basics.
ELIZABETH WURTZELI come from a family of screamers. If they are trying to express any emotion or idea beyond pass the salt, it comes in shrieks.
More Elizabeth Wurtzel Quotes
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In a strange way, I had fallen in love with my depression.
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Into every sunny life a little rain must fall.
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I sit there in my bed staring at the wall, feeling happy, enjoying the way the wall looks, how pink and how white it is. Pink and white, as far as I’m concerned, have never looked quite so pink and white before.
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…if you feel everything intensely, ultimately you feel nothing at all.
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And she keeps saying, how can you do this to me? And i want to scream, what do you mean, how can I do this to you? Aren’t we confusing our pronouns here? The question, really, is How could I do this to myself?
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My life’s actually been quite dull; it’s not all that glamorous.
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In the meantime, I could withdraw to my room, could hide and sleep as if I were dead
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homesickness is just a state of mind for me. i’m always missing someone or someplace or something, i’m always trying to get back to some imaginary somewhere. my life has been one long longing.
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Because trying to see all sides, such an instinct is particularly Jewish.
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But just as a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing, a little bit of energy, in the hands of someone hell-bent on suicide, is a very dangerous thing.
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Oh, Ma, you’re looking at all the trees, and I’m not even in the forest.
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My imagination, my ability to understand the way love and people grow over time, how passion can surprise and renew, utterly failed me.
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Am I worried people will say I’m repeating myself? Sure. One thought I had was to publish it as a novel but eventually I just decided to do what I wanted to do.
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And I want out of this life on drugs.
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The measure of 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.
ELIZABETH WURTZEL