I am not a nostalgic person.

All I do is go to the movies.

I am a hopeless, shameless flirt.

Everything's plastic, we're all gonna die.

The truth is that I'd always wanted to go to law school.

In a strange way, I had fallen in love with my depression.

That is all I want in life: for this pain to seem purposeful.

You don't even have to hate to have a perfectly miserable time.

My life's actually been quite dull; it's not all that glamorous.

If you are chronically down, it is a lifelong fight to keep from sinking

I am fortunate to have been well paid for an almost pathological honesty.

Because trying to see all sides, such an instinct is particularly Jewish.

I don't know what to do if I am not inspiring some sort of false fascination.

A human being can survive almost anything, as long as she sees the end in sight!

Mental illness is so much more complicated than any pill that any mortal could invent

Sometimes it feels like we're all living in a Prozac nation. The United States of Depression.

Feminism is a good venue for getting yourself across as much as for getting your point across.

I am baffled by men. When they want me, I don't want them; when I want them, they don't want me.

In life, single women are the most vulnerable adults. In movies, they are given imaginary power.

Depression is about as close as you get to somewhere between dead and alive, and it's the worst.

It's like Samson and Delilah: watch your back, because trouble could be the person you're sleeping with.

Insanity is knowing that what you're doing is completely idiotic, but still, somehow, you just can't stop it.

It was just very interesting to me that certain types of women inspire people's imagination, and all of them were very difficult women.

My imagination, my ability to understand the way love and people grow over time, how passion can surprise and renew, utterly failed me.

I admire Bruce Springsteen because he's a heroic person who has lots of integrity and has this incredible body of work that is so vital.

Judaism will be enmeshed in pride and shame for as long as it endures. But to endure as a country, Israel must shun both these tendencies.

As someone very sagely said during the parricide trials of the Menendez Brothers: anytime your kids kill you, you are at least partly to blame.

There are some remarks that are so stupid that to be even vaguely aware of them is the intellectual equivalent of living next door to Chernobyl.

In my case, I was not frightened in the least bit at the thought that I might live because I was certain, quite certain, that I was already dead.

Israel fights back, which is very much at odds with the Jewish instinct to discuss and deconstruct everything until action itself seems senseless.

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.

Age is a terrible avenger. The lessons of life give you so much to work with, but by the time you've got all this great wisdom, you don't get to be young anymore.

The men have piled up in my past, have fallen trenchantly through my life, like an avalanche that doesn't mean to kill but is going to bury me alive just the same.

I don't want any more vicissitudes, I don't want any more of this try, try again stuff. I just want out. I've had it. I am so tired. I am twenty and I am already exhausted.

The American Dream, coupled with government subsidies of utilities and cheap consumer goods courtesy of slave labour somewhere else, has kept the poor huddled masses from rising up.

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.

Why does the rest of the world put up with the hypocrisy, the need to put a happy face on sorrow, the need to keep on keeping on?... I don't know the answer, I know only that I can't.

I start to feel like I can't maintain the facade any longer, that I may just start to show through. And I wish I knew what was wrong. Maybe something about how stupid my whole life is.

I believe women who are supported by men are prostitutes; that is that, and I am heartbroken to live through a time where Wall Street money means these women are not treated with due disdain.

I start to think there really is no cure for depression, that happiness is an ongoing battle, and I wonder if it isn't one I'll have to fight for as long as I live. I wonder if it's worth it.

Sometimes I wish that there were a way to let people know that just because I live in a world without rules, and in a life that is lawless, doesn't mean that it doesn't hurt so bad the morning after.

Yes, the United States is still the great meritocracy it's always been; but now, if you aren't brilliant or beautiful or both, there isn't much to do, because they can do it cheaper in Shanghai or Mumbai.

As it is my good fortune to be American, I live in the only country that as a matter of policy is pro-Israel regardless of party allegiance; Democrats and Republicans equally unite behind the blue-and-white.

Convention serves a purpose: It gives life meaning, and without it, one is in a constant existential crisis. If you don't have the imposition of family to remind you of what is at stake, something else will.

By never marrying, I ended up never divorcing, but I also failed to accumulate that brocade of civility and padlock of security - kids you do or don't want, Tiffany silver you never use - that makes life complete.

I used to feel that I spent too much of my time in my pajamas doing nothing, and I'd think 'in the time that I don't spend writing, I could raise a family of five.' In a lot of ways, being a writer is lonely and alienating.

Like, in high school, I was a good student and got straight As. It was very strict and you couldn't do well there unless you studied very hard, but every time there was any trouble, I was the first person they would be talking to.

I thought depression was the part of my character that made me worthwhile. I thought so little of myself, felt that I had such scant offerings to give to the world, that the one thing that justified my existence at all was my agony.

I am motivated to write because it is what I am meant to do. It is not a choice - it is what I am. I did not choose writing - it chose me. And I believe it is necessarily that way. Anyone doing this for some other reason should not be.

I always carry lots of stuff with me wherever I roam, always weighted down with books, with cassettes, with pens and paper, just in case I get the urge to sit down somewhere, and oh, I don't know, read something or write my masterpiece.

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