Quotes from Ned Vizzini

I raise my wrist, show him the bracelets. I have pride in them now. They're true, and people can't screw with them. And when you say the truth you get stronger.

The wall is home base. The wall won't move. If I stand at the wall, I won't be expected to move. This is what it means to be a wallflower. Now I understand.

I love you," I mumble. "Even though I'm a teenager and I'm not supposed to." "I love you too," Dad says. "Even though … eh . . . No. I don't have any jokes about it. I just do.

Why are you bothering? You've got an excuse. You've got bad blood. You must like living; I guess I would if I were you.

Yeah, and she's really screwed up, as screwed up as me, but I don't look at that as an insult. I look at that as a chance to connect.

Because there's so much stuff out there that you have to do something to deal with it.

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

Don't kill yourself, okay?

I'm not afraid of dying; I'm only afraid of living

I am a guy, I say. And I hate boys, she says. But a guy's different, I say. Maybe a little, she says.

Hold on a second. I can talk,' I say. 'Guys.' I look at all three of them in turn. 'One thing that they do in here is give you a lot of time to think. I can't explain it; once you come in, time just slows down-' 'Well, you don't have any interruptions, that's probably it-' 'Also I think the clocks are a little off-' I wave my hand. 'Point is, you have time to think about how you got here...

But you know what, it's time for me to stop putting other people's emotions ahead of my own. It's time for me to be true to myself, like the popstars say. And my true self wants to blast off this rock.

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.

So when I ran out of the final bottle of Zoloft, I didn't take any more. I didn't call Dr. Barney either. I just threw the bottle away and said Okay, if I ever feel bad again, I'll remember how good I felt that night on the Brooklyn Bridge. Pills were for wimps, and this was over; I was done; I was back to me.

See, because being Cool is obviously the most important thing on earth. It's more important than getting a job, or having a girlfriend, or political power, or money, because all those things are predicated by Coolness.

We all live within time. It rules us.

It is five in the morning. I have woken up without any alarm. I have woken up because the thoughts are so loud, and none of them mean me well.

Who hasn't thought about killing themselves, as a kid? How can you grow up in this world and not think about it?

Here in the real world, all equals are created animal, but some are more animal than others.

I don't owe people anything, and I don't have to talk to them any more than I feel I need to.

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. ... you stumble on them as they gather behind your lower lip. So you just keep quiet.

I work, Monica, and I think about work, and I freak out about work, and I think about how much I think about work, and I freak out about how much I think about how much I think about work, and I think about how freaked out I get about how much I think about how much I think about work. Does that count as a hobby?

Maybe it was stupid and solipsistic, but I liked to think about me. I didn't want to be part of some trend.

When you mess something up, you learn for the next time.