Top 118 Quotes & Sayings by Ned Vizzini

Putting lessons in young adult books is very dangerous.

'Game of Thrones' cares about children. Children are heirs. There's no hemming and hawing about how they're desensitized to violence or they cost too much to send to college. They're a blessing - in many ways the only blessing - and even the evil ones have parents who love them.

Adolescence is the most Technicolor time in our lives. It's the time when adulthood is new and we care most about it. It contains the highs and lows that excite me as a writer.

Once you have a kid, it's amazing how quickly people ask, 'So are you going to stop at just one?'

A lot of the books that I grew up reading were pretty brutal, like the 'Redwall' books.

I have an issue with dogs - I can't pick up after them. It's nothing personal; it just makes me feel like a servant.

You have tremendous freedom in the young adult book world to write what you want. You can put R-rated content in a book that you can't in a similarly targeted movie.

A novel wouldn't be a book if there weren't some flights of fancy on the part of the author, stopping time to examine things, or to tell a joke.

I always start a book thinking that it can be something other than first-person present, and I always come back to first-person present. It's just the easiest way.

People have always asked me why I'm drawn to material about kids, and for me, it's - I remember being at that age and feeling completely and utterly powerless. You know, there's so many things you wanna do and so many things you're told you can't do.

I was never big on rage.' 'Why?' "It's so much more angry in my head than it could ever be outside.

One thing I've learnt recently: how to think nothing. Here's the trick: don't have any interest in the world around you, don't have any hope for the future, and be warm.

Life can't be cured, but it can be managed.

I like you a lot. Because you’re funny and smart and because you seem to like me. I know that’s not a good reason, but I can’t help it; if a girl likes me I tend to like her back [...] I like you for all this stuff but I also kind of like you for the cuts on your face—

The absolute worst part of being depressed is the food. A person's relationship with food is one of their most important relationships. I don't think your relationship with your parents is that important. Some people never know their parents. I don't think your relationship with your friends are important. But your relationship with air-that's key. You can't break up with air. You're kind of stuck together. Only slightly less crucial is water. And then food. You can't be dropping food to hang with someone else. You need to strike up an agreement with it.

So why am I depressed? That's the million-dollar question, baby, the Tootsie Roll question; not even the owl knows the answer to that one. I don't know either. All I know is the chronology.

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.

Life's not about feeling better, it's about getting the job done.

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.

I'm jealous of her. Can you be jealous of your mom for being able to handle things? I couldn't take a day off, take a dog to the vet, and cook dinner. That's like three times too much stuff for me to get done in one day. How am I ever going to have my own house?

I work. 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.

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

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

I found myself jealous of the people who wrote the books. They were dead and they were still taking up my time. Who did they think they were?

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

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

My brain was all right back then; it didn't get stuck in ruts.

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.

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

She doesn't want to end up like me. At least I'm giving someone an example not to follow.

I don't know how I can be so ambitious and so lazy at the same time.

Sometimes when you open a book, time stops.

That's all I can do. I'll keep at it and hope it gets better.

It’s tough to get out of bed; I know that myself. You can lie there for an hour and a half without thinking anything, just worrying about what the day holds and knowing that you won’t be able to deal with it.

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

I feel dead, wasted, awful, broken and useless. It's not the kind of feeling you forget.

I'm smart but not enough--just smart enough to have problems.

I'm not afraid of dying, I'm afraid of living.

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

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?

People are screwed up in this world. I'd rather be with someone screwed up and open about it than somebody perfect and ready to explode.

Sometimes I wish I had an easy answer for why I'm depressed.

I want my brain to slide back into the slot it was meant to be in, rest there the way it did before the fall of last year, back when I was young, witty, and my teachers said I had incredible promise.

I don't-" I shake my head. (...) "What? What were you going to say?" This is another trick of shrinks. They never let you stop in midthought. If you open your mouth, they want to know exactly what you had the intention of saying.

Misfortune is no excuse for cruelty.

I'm done with those; regrets are an excuse for people who have failed.

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.

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.

I didn't want to wake up. I was having a much better time asleep. And that's really sad.

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

Life is not cured, Mr. Gilner." Dr. Mahmoud leans in. "Life is managed.

Ski. Sled. Play basketball. Jog. Run. Run. Run. Run home. Run home and enjoy. Enjoy. Take these verbs and enjoy them. They're yours, Craig. You deserve them because you chose them. You could have left them all behind but you chose to stay here. So now live for real, Craig. Live. Live. Live. Live. Live.

Some of the most profound truths about us are things that we stop saying in the middle.

So now live for real, Craig. Live. Live. Live. Live.

Some days I woke up and got out of bed and brushed my teeth like any normal human being; some days I woke up and laid in bed and looked at the ceiling and wondered what the hell the point was of getting out of bed and brushing my teeth like any normal human being.

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.

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.

That made me happy. That was my Anchor.

That's the number one thing I hear about humans. You have all these choices, so you're confused all the time, and you think so much that you're never happy.

If there is a next life, I hope it's in the past; I don't think the future will be any more handleable. I think it's a little harsh how the END button is red.