Quotes from It's Kind of a Funny Story

“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.”
― Ned Vizzini, quote from It's Kind of a Funny Story

“I can't eat and I can't sleep. I'm not doing well in terms of being a functional human, you know?”
― Ned Vizzini, quote from It's Kind of a Funny Story

“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.”
― Ned Vizzini, quote from It's Kind of a Funny Story

“I waste at least an hour every day lying in bed. Then I waste time pacing. I waste time thinking. I waste time being quiet and not saying anything because I'm afraid I'll stutter.”
― Ned Vizzini, quote from It's Kind of a Funny Story

“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.”
― Ned Vizzini, quote from It's Kind of a Funny Story

“I don't know how I can be so ambitious and so lazy at the same time.”
― Ned Vizzini, quote from It's Kind of a Funny Story

“I'm done with those; regrets are an excuse for people who have failed.”
― Ned Vizzini, quote from It's Kind of a Funny Story

“Things to do today:
1) Breathe in.
2) Breathe out.”
― Ned Vizzini, quote from It's Kind of a Funny Story

“I'm fine. Well, I'm not fine - I'm here."
"Is there something wrong with that?"
"Absolutely.”
― Ned Vizzini, quote from It's Kind of a Funny Story

“Dreams are only dreams until you wake up and make them real.”
― Ned Vizzini, quote from It's Kind of a Funny Story

“I don't owe people anything, and I don't have to talk to them any more than I feel I need to.”
― Ned Vizzini, quote from It's Kind of a Funny Story

“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.”
― Ned Vizzini, quote from It's Kind of a Funny Story

“I just want to not be me.”
― Ned Vizzini, quote from It's Kind of a Funny Story

“I'm smart but not enough--just smart enough to have problems.”
― Ned Vizzini, quote from It's Kind of a Funny Story

“Life's not about feeling better, it's about getting the job done.”
― Ned Vizzini, quote from It's Kind of a Funny Story

“See, when you mess something up, you learn for the next time. It's when people compliment you that you're in trouble. That means they expect you to keep it up.”
― Ned Vizzini, quote from It's Kind of a Funny Story

“I’m not better, you know. The weight hasn’t left my head. I feel how easily I could fall back into it, lie down and not eat, waste my time and curse wasting my time, look at my homework and freak out and go and chill at Aaron’s, look at Nia and be jealous again, take the subway home and hope that it has an accident, go and get my bike and head to the Brooklyn Bridge. All of that is still there. The only thing is, it’s not an option now. It’s just… a possibility, like it’s a possibility that I could turn to dust in the next instant and be disseminated throughout the universe as an omniscient consciousness. It’s not a very likely possibility.”
― Ned Vizzini, quote from It's Kind of a Funny Story

“That's all I can do. I'll keep at it and hope it gets better.”
― Ned Vizzini, quote from It's Kind of a Funny Story

“Life can't be cured, but it can be managed.”
― Ned Vizzini, quote from It's Kind of a Funny Story

“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.”
― Ned Vizzini, quote from It's Kind of a Funny Story

“Some of the most profound truths about us are things that we stop saying in the middle.”
― Ned Vizzini, quote from It's Kind of a Funny Story

“(...) Since I was a kid."
"Which you refer to as 'back when you were happy.'"
"Right.”
― Ned Vizzini, quote from It's Kind of a Funny Story

“What happened when you woke up?"
"I was having a dream. I don’t know what it was, but when I woke up, I had this awful realization that I was awake. It hit me like a brick in the groin."
"Like a brick in the groin, I see."
"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."
"And what is that nightmare, Craig?"
"Life."
"Life is a nightmare."
"Yes.”
― Ned Vizzini, quote from It's Kind of a Funny Story

“I should be a success and I'm not and other people- younger people- are. Younger people than me are on TV and getting their lives in order. I'm still a nobody. When am I going to not be a nobody?”
― Ned Vizzini, quote from It's Kind of a Funny Story

“No," mom says, looking at me in the eyes. "What's a triumph is that you woke up this morning and decided to LIVE. THAT'S a triumph. that's what you did today.”
― Ned Vizzini, quote from It's Kind of a Funny Story

“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.”
― Ned Vizzini, quote from It's Kind of a Funny Story

“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.”
― Ned Vizzini, quote from It's Kind of a Funny Story

“My family shouldn't have to put up with me. They're good people, solid, happy. Sometimes when I'm with them I think I'm on television.”
― Ned Vizzini, quote from It's Kind of a Funny Story

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He said, “You could explain the fridge a few ways. One, there’s some hidden outlet, probably buried in the sand, that leads to a power source far away. I figure there’d have to be at least twenty miles of cable involved before it connected to the grid. That’s a lot of extension cord. Or, this fridge has some kind of secret battery system. If the empirical details didn’t bear this out, if you thoroughly studied the refrigerator and found neither a connection to a distant power source nor a battery, you might still argue that the fridge had some super-insulation capabilities and that the food inside had been able to stay cold since it was dragged out here. But say this explanation didn’t pan out either, and you observed the fridge staying the same temperature week after week while you opened and closed it. Then you’d start to wonder if it was powered by some technology beyond your comprehension. But pretty soon you’d notice something else about this refrigerator. The fact that it never runs out of food. Then you’d start to wonder if somehow it didn’t get restocked while you slept. But you’d realize that it replenished itself all the time, not just while you were sleeping. All this time, you’d keep eating from it. It would keep you alive out here in the middle of nowhere. And because of its mystery you’d begin to hate and fear it, and yet still it would feed you. Even though you couldn’t explain it, you’d still need it. And you’d assume that you simply didn’t understand the technology, rather than ascribe to it some kind of metaphysical power. You wouldn’t place your faith in the hands of some unknowable god. You’d place it in the technology itself. Finally, in frustration, you’d come to realize you’d exhausted your rationality and the only sensible thing to do would be to praise the mystery. You’d worship its bottles of Corona and jars of pickled beets. You’d make up prayers to the meats drawer and sing about its light bulb. And you’d start to accept the mystery as the one undeniable thing about it. That, or you’d grow so frustrated you’d push it off this cliff.”

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