Quotes from Ned Vizzini

A person's relationship with food is one of their most important relationships.

You shouldn't be able to be alive and you are. You want to trade?

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.

Dr. Barney stared at me, his lips puckered. What was he so serious about? Who hasn't thought about killing themselves, as a kid? How can you grow up in this world and not think about it?

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

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.

I had fooled myself into thinking that I was something important to the rest of the world.

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

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

They always said on TV you could do anything you wanted, but here I was trying to do something and it wasn't working. I would never be able to do it.

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.

She's pretty. (It's amazing how girls can say this and make it the most withering insult.)

I owe her everything and I love her and I tell her these days, although every time I say it, it gets a little diluted. I think you run out of I love yous.

I've had good moments scattered since then, times when I thought I was better, but that was the last day I felt triumphant.

its hard to talk when you want to kill yourself

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.

It's when people compliment you that you're in trouble. That means they expect you to keep it up.

I'm still a nobody, when am I not going to be a nobody?

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.

Is that the truth, Jimmy? I ask without looking at him. It's the truth and it come to ya! I smile.

Relationships change even more than people. It's like two people changing. It's exponentially more volatile. Especially two teenagers.

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

If you can't get out of bed for long enough, people come and take your bed away

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.