Michael Thomas Ford

“That sounds so weird: "kill yourself." It makes it sound like you tried to murder someone, only that someone is you. But killing someone is wrong, and I don't think suicide is. It's my life, right? I should be able to end it if I want to. I don't think it's a sin.”

“Seven little crazy kids chopping up sticks;One burnt her daddy up and then there were six.Six little crazy kids playing with a hive;One tattooed himself to death and then there were five.Five little crazy kids on a cellar door;One went all schizo and then there were four.Four little crazy kids going out to sea;One wouldn't say a word and then there were three.Three little crazy kids walking to the zoo;One jerked himself too much and then there were two.Two little crazy kids sitting in the sun;One a took a bunch of pills and then there was one.One little crazy kid left all alone;He went and slit his wrists, and then there were none.”

“One time Allie and I skipped school and went to see this foreign film called Los Diablos, where these villagers found a glowing blue ball and peeled pieces off of it to see what was inside. Only the ball was really radioactive, and they all died from the poison. I think that’s what happens when you look too deep inside for the truth. The poison comes out, and you die, even though you have beautiful glowing pieces of blue truth in your fingers.”

“I'm not sure what a good person is, exactly. On the one hand, it could be someone who always play by the rules. But someone can follow the rules and still be a real jerk, you know? In fact, some of the biggest idiots I know are people who follow the rules, usually because they make you feel like crap when you don't.”

“And just because your life isn't as awful as someone else's, that doesn't mean it doesn't suck. You can't compare how you feel to the way other people feel. It just doesn't work. What might look like the perfect life- or even an okay life- to you might not be so okay for the person living it.”

“Boney the snowman, was a crazy, whacked-out guy, with tattooed skin and a goofy grin, and he liked to get real high. There must have been some acid in the soda that he had, 'cause when he went and drank it, it screwed him up real bad. He led them to the psycho ward, right to the dear old doc. And when they asked him what was wrong he told them 'suck my cock.”

“If you ever manage to become perfect, you have to die instantly before you ruin things for everyone else.”

“Once you realise there's nothing to be afraid of when you die, there's nothing else to worry about.”

“I know all about dreams that make you want to scream.”

“I keep feeling like everyone wants me to apologize for something.”

“Sometimes I think there’s someone up there just sitting around thinking of ways to make me look like a complete moron. Seriously, I bet there’s an angel—or, more likely, a demon—assigned just to me. And every day it gets up and asks itself what it can do to ruin my life. Well, today it got an A plus.”

“And it’s not like I’ve never jacked off. I’m fifteen years old. Of course I do it. Any guy who says he doesn’t is lying. That would be like having the coolest video game ever and never playing it. No one’s that stupid.”

“Now I just have these reddish scars there. I guess I always will, although Goody says they’ll fade over time. I don’t know if I want them to fade. That probably sounds totally freaky, but part of me doesn’t want to forget what it felt like, even though it hurt. If I forget about the pain, I might also forget that it was a really stupid idea to do it in the first place.”

“Like I said, some people think it’s weird that my best friend is a girl. Sometimes I think it’s weird, too. Mostly people assume that we’re boyfriend and girlfriend, which I guess we could be. But that just seems too teen-movie, if you know what I mean. A boy and girl are best friends, neither of them dates anyone else, and then one night they look at each other and—bang—they realize they’ve been in love with each other the whole time. Everyone’s happy and they go to the big dance together.”

“This is the part where they try to make you remember,” said Sadie. She looked at my wrists. “Is it working?” Without realizing it, I’d pushed one sleeve of my pajamas up and was rubbing the gauze that circled my wrist. I stopped, and let the sleeve fall back where it was.”

“But he'd never been in love. He knew that was what he was really asking himself. He'd never given himself to someone else completely. He'd always held something back, even if he hadn't known that he was doing it. He'd reserved the deepest part of him, the part that truly was him, because he'd feared that once he gave it away he would never get it back.”

“When people hurt us, the best thing to do isn’t to ask why they did it but to remind ourselves that it wasn’t our fault.”

“Why is it that you have to warn people about who you are?”

“I'm tired of people thinking they're doing me favors.”

“How come someone always saves the people who try to kill themselves and then makes them tell everyone how sorry they are for ruining their evening? I keep feeling like everyone wants me to apologize for something. but I'm not going to. I don't have anything to apologize for. They're the ones who screwed everything up. Not me.I didn't ask to be saved.”

“It's like whoever sits up ther in Heaven had this big bag of really crappy stuff, and once or twice a day she or he reaches in and sprinkles a little bit of it over the world and it makes everything go crazy, like fairy dust that's past its expiration date.”

“Just because your life isn't as awful as someone else's, that doesn't mean it doesn't suck. You can't compare how you feel to the way other people feel. It just doesn't work. What might look like the perfect life -- or even an okay life -- to you might not be so okay for the person living it.”

“That sounds weird: "kill yourself." It makes it sound like you tried to murder someone, only that someone is you.”

“Anyone can be crazy. That's usually just because there's something screwed up in your wiring, you know? But suicide is a whole different thing. I mean, how much do you have to hate yourself to want to just wipe yourself out?”

“I knew people were talking, but I wasn't listening. I wasn't interested in anything anyone had to say.”

“Personally, I think they killed the bear because they were afraid of it. That s what people do, kill the things they re afraid of.”

“To be fair he is Lord Byron," Jane said. "I don't know many people who haven't slept with him at one time or another." -- Jane Fairfax”

“That's what people do. Kill the things they're afraid of.”

“It's a really crappy feeling to realize that your entire outook on your life can be controlled by some little pill that looks like a Pez, and that some weird combination of drugs can make your brain think it's on a holiday somewhere really sweet when you're standing naked in the middle of the school cafeteria while everyone takes pictures of you. Metaphorically. Or whatever.”

“She laughed. "Welcome to Camp Meds," She said. "Where the campers are crazy and the counselors want you to take drugs.”

“Let me tell something, seeing your name and psychiatric ward on the same piece of paper isn't the best way to start your day.”

“And anyway, the truth isn't all that great. I mean, what's the truth? Planes falling out of the sky. Buses blowing up and ripping little kids into millions of pieces. Twelve-year-olds raping people and then shooting them in the head so they can't tell. I can't watch the news anymore or look at the papers. It's like whoever sits up there in Heaven has this big bag of really crappy stuff, and once or twice a day she or he reaches in and sprinkles a little bit of it over the world and makes everything crazy, like fairy dust that's past its expiration date.”

“I swear, sometimes it feels like there's this monkey in my head who runs around turning the dials and changing channels on me. One minute I'm sitting around eating chocolate chip cookies and then all of a sudden I'm thinking about bears.”

“I’ve been thinking about that ever since. Am I lucky? Am I lucky that I didn’t die? Am I lucky that, compared to the other kids here, my life doesn’t seem so bad? Maybe I am, but I have to say, I don’t feel lucky. For one thing, I’m stuck in this pit. And just because your life isn’t as awful as someone else’s, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck. You can’t compare how you feel to the way other people feel. It just doesn’t work. What might look like the perfect life—or even an okay life—to you might not be so okay for the person living it.”

“It will go away... The stuff in your head. Little by little.”

“Astronotların uzayda salınıp yeryüzüne döndükten sonra, burası onlara çürüyen bir et gibi koktuğu için midelerinin kötü olduğunu okumuştum bir yerlerde. Biz diğer insanlar, her gün soluduğumuz için bu iğrenç kokuyu fark etmiyoruz; hava bize normal geliyor, ama aslında içine saldığımız bir sürü çöp, kimyasal ve kirletici maddeyle dolu. Sonra, dünya birinin eski arabasıymış da, dikiz aynasına büyük boy bir çam kokusu asıyormuşuz gibi etrafa başka saçmalıklar sıkıp havanın daha iyi kokmasını sağlamaya çalışıyoruz.”

“I'm still kind of a mess. But I think we all are. No one's got it all together. I don't think you ever do get it totally together. Probably if you did manage to do it you'd spontaneously combust. I think that's a law of nature. If you ever manage to become perfect, you have to die instantly before you ruin things for everyone else.”

“So now I'm thinking about it. I'm imagining sitting down with my parents and actually saying, "I'm gay." And you know what? It makes me a little mad. I mean, straight guys don't have to sit their parents down and tell them they like girls.”

“No one in France cares if you tried to kill yourself. In fact, I think they like you better because you're all tragic.”

“Straight people get married so that they can have sex. Gay men have sex so that they can get friends. ”

“When The Journal of Words compiled its list of the one hundred best novels written in English, do you know that Pride and Prejudice was number twelve?" She stopped pacing and glared at Jane. "And do you know where Jane Eyre was?" she asked. She looked at the four of them in turn, but nobody answered her. "Number fifty-two!" she shrieked. "Fifty-two! Below that pornographic travesty Lolita!" She spat the title as if it were poison. "Below Huckleberry Finn! Below Ulysses. Have you ever tried to read Ulysses? Have you ever finished it? No, you haven't. No one has. They just carry it around and lie about having read it.”

“I didn't realize there was a ranking." I said. "Sadie frowned. "What do you mean?" "A ranking," I said. "You know, what's crazier than what." "Oh, sure there is," Sadie said. She sat back in her chair. "First you have your generic depressives. They're a dime a dozen and usually pretty boring. Then you've got the bulimics and the anorexics. They're slightly more interesting, although usually they're just girls with nothing better to do. Then you start getting into the good stuff: the arsonists, the schizophrenics, the manic-depressives. You can never quite tell what those will do. And then you've got the junkies. They're completely tragic, because chances are they're just going to go right back on the stuff when they're out of here." "So junkies are at the top of the crazy chain," I said. Sadie shook her head. "Uh-uh," she said. "Suicides are." I looked at her. "Why?" "Anyone can be crazy," she answered. "That's usually just because there's something screwed up in your wiring, you know? But suicide is a whole different thing. I mean, how much do you have to hate yourself to want to just wipe yourself out?”

“I believe that God—if he exists at all—is what we want him to be. The true God is unknowable, and so we dress him up in costumes that make him visible to us. Then we come up with a lot of very silly rules that we attribute to him and tell everyone if they don't follow those rules, they can't be part of the gang.”