Ned Vizzini, It's Kind of a Funny Story

"You want to play video games twenty-four hours a day"Or watch. I just want to not be me. Whether it's sleeping or playing video games or riding my bike or studying. Giving my brain up. That's what's important."

"I can't eat and I can't sleep. I'm not doing well in terms of being a functional human, you know?"

"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."

"I waste at least an hour every day lying in bed. Then I waste time pacing. I waste time thinking. I waste time being quiet and not saying anything because I'm afraid I'll stutter."

"Its so hard to talk when you want to kill yourself. That's above and beyond everything else, and it's not a mental complaint-it's a physical thing, like it's physically hard to open your mouth and make the words come out. They don't come out smooth and in conjunction with your brain the way normal people's words do; they come out in chunks as if from a crushed-ice dispenser; you stumble on them as they gather behind your lower lip. So you just keep quiet."

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

"I’m not better, you know. The weight hasn’t left my head. I feel how easily I could fall back into it, lie down and not eat, waste my time and curse wasting my time, look at my homework and freak out and go and chill at Aaron’s, look at Nia and be jealous again, take the subway home and hope that it has an accident, go and get my bike and head to the Brooklyn Bridge. All of that is still there. The only thing is, it’s not an option now. It’s just… a possibility, like it’s a possibility that I could turn to dust in the next instant and be disseminated throughout the universe as an omniscient consciousness. It’s not a very likely possibility."

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

"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."

"I wanted to tell people, "My depression is acting up today" as an excuse for not seeing them, but I never managed to pull it off."

"That's worst than gonerreha, man!"

"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."

"Dreams are only dreams until you wake up and make them real."

"It's such a silly little thing, the heart."

"And I could have died right then. And considering how things went, I really should have."

"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."

"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."

"Sometimes I just think depression's one way of coping with the world. Like, some people get drunk, some people do drugs, some people get depressed. Because there's so much stuff out there that you have to do something to deal with it."