Quotes from Sickened: The Memoir of a Munchausen by Proxy Childhood

244 pages

Rating: (14.4K votes)


“I start to see that I surround myself with broken people; more broken than me. Ah, yes, let me count your cracks. Let's see, one hundred, two... yes, you'll do nicely. A cracked companion makes me look more whole, gives me something outside myself to care for. When I'm with whole, healed people I feel my own cracks, the shatters, the insanities of dislocation in myself.”
― quote from Sickened: The Memoir of a Munchausen by Proxy Childhood


“But the memories that hang heaviest are the easiest to recall. They hold in their creases the ability to change one's life, organically, forever. Even when you shake them out, they've left permanent wrinkles in the fabric of your soul.”
― quote from Sickened: The Memoir of a Munchausen by Proxy Childhood


“Books are my friends, where it's okay to be silent, where you're not a freak if you don't want to get drunk, peel out in the parking lot, tip cows.”
― quote from Sickened: The Memoir of a Munchausen by Proxy Childhood


“When I look in the fridge, I see groceries, but I don't see food. My stomach growls; but there is no appetite.

Appetite and hunger are different. Appetite is the mental prompting that kicks the auto-response into drive so you actually reach out, take the food, put it in your mouth, chew, and swallow. I learned this in my first psychology course. Eating isn't just a physical need; it starts in the mind, generating hunger, which then should trigger the body to ingest food. I have no sparks between these plugs.”
― quote from Sickened: The Memoir of a Munchausen by Proxy Childhood


“But the memories that hang heaviest are the easiest to recall.”
― quote from Sickened: The Memoir of a Munchausen by Proxy Childhood



“As long as I'm between home and the clinic I do all right. But out in the real world, I feel like prey. I slink around and can feel people looking at me. I feel their eyes boring into me. I feel what they're thinking: Watch her, she could go off anytime. But within the walls of my farmhouse, I climb out of the protective shell, my arms slowly rise like a phoenix, and I dance, wail, fly around the room and then collapse, crying, in front of my mirrors. I start to see in the mirror what it is I really look like, instead of what I was trained from the womb to see. I do not write about it. I do not talk about it. I do not know what I am doing. But just like a baby bird, I am blinking once-sealed eyes and unfolding damp wings. I cannot articulate the past. A part of me knows it's there, lurking, just behind what I can acknowledge, but it is not within sight. And I am keeping it that way. ”
― quote from Sickened: The Memoir of a Munchausen by Proxy Childhood


“I am going to shrink and shrink until I am a dry fall leaf, complete with a translucent spine and brittle veins, blowing away in a stiff wind, up, up, up into a crisp blue sky.”
― quote from Sickened: The Memoir of a Munchausen by Proxy Childhood


“But Dad, you were a grown man, you have got to take responsibility for what you did, too! I mean, you made me eat [snotty] Kleenex, Dad! For Christ's sake, you can't do that to a little girl! You have got to say you're sorry for the stuff you did as a grown man!'
'Well,' Dad snorts, 'I musta done something right! 'Cause you never left any snot rags lying around the house again, now, did you?”
― quote from Sickened: The Memoir of a Munchausen by Proxy Childhood


“Life is not a problem to be solved but a work to be made, and that work may well utilize much raw material we would prefer to do without.”
― quote from Sickened: The Memoir of a Munchausen by Proxy Childhood


“They say the truth hurts, but the only thing the truth hurts, are illusions.”
― quote from Sickened: The Memoir of a Munchausen by Proxy Childhood



“Books are my friends, where it’s okay to be silent, where you’re not a freak if you don’t want to get drunk, peel out in a parking lot, tip cows.”
― quote from Sickened: The Memoir of a Munchausen by Proxy Childhood


“Her voice trailed after any doctor who said no more tests could be done, stalked him down the corridor, sliced”
― quote from Sickened: The Memoir of a Munchausen by Proxy Childhood


“I am just a girl, a girl men touch without asking, a girl men disrobe without even seeing her tears.”
― quote from Sickened: The Memoir of a Munchausen by Proxy Childhood


Popular quotes

“Yeah, oh. Trust me, if I wanted to go there, we would have already been there.” I’ve never rolled my eyes so fast in my life. “Please, you are not my type.” He moves closer. “But don’t you remember? I’m the man of your”
― E.J. Mellow, quote from The Dreamer


“How did we let an ideological resistance to inquiry become such a prominent part of our society?”
― Bill Nye, quote from Undeniable: Evolution and the Science of Creation


“If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all.”
― Margaret Atwood, quote from Lady Oracle


“يستحيل أن نُقطّع أيَّ حيوان كان أو نقتُله دون أن يتألّم.”
― Comtesse de Ségur, quote from Sophie's Misfortunes


“That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou see’st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west;
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see’st the glowing of such fire,
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the deathbed whereon it must expire,
Consumed with that which it was nourished by.
This thou perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

(Sonnet 73 (1609))”
― William Shakespeare, quote from The Complete Sonnets and Poems


Interesting books

Harvesting the Heart
(39.4K)
Harvesting the Heart
by Jodi Picoult
In the Cities of Coin and Spice
(2.3K)
In the Cities of Coi...
by Catherynne M. Valente
Forgiven
(9.5K)
Forgiven
by Karen Kingsbury
Spice & Wolf, Vol. 01
(3.4K)
Spice & Wolf, Vol. 0...
by Isuna Hasekura
Rule of the Bone
(7.4K)
Rule of the Bone
by Russell Banks
The Assault
(8.4K)
The Assault
by Harry Mulisch

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.