Quotes from Sybil: The Classic True Story of a Woman Possessed by Sixteen Personalities

“You're never ready for what you have to do. You just do it. That makes you ready.”
― quote from Sybil: The Classic True Story of a Woman Possessed by Sixteen Personalities

“Isolated, she managed somehow to feel free—albeit with a freedom that made her want to smash a hole in the very center of the universe.”
― quote from Sybil: The Classic True Story of a Woman Possessed by Sixteen Personalities

“There is no past. Past is present when you carry it with you.”
― quote from Sybil: The Classic True Story of a Woman Possessed by Sixteen Personalities

“I want somebody to love, and I want somebody to love me. And nobody ever will. And that's why it hurts. Because it makes a difference. And when nobody cares, it makes you all mad inside and it makes you want to say things, tear up things, break things, get through the glass.”
― quote from Sybil: The Classic True Story of a Woman Possessed by Sixteen Personalities

“I’m not fit to occupy space. Excuse me for living.”
― quote from Sybil: The Classic True Story of a Woman Possessed by Sixteen Personalities

“I have to force myself even to move my eyeballs. It's so easy just to stare.”
― quote from Sybil: The Classic True Story of a Woman Possessed by Sixteen Personalities

“Theirs was the eternal youth of an alternating self, a youth with the constant although unfulfilled promise of growing up”
― quote from Sybil: The Classic True Story of a Woman Possessed by Sixteen Personalities

“The anger. The terror. The feeling of entrapment. the profound distrust of people.The wistful, plaintive conviction that a window, a thing, was more important than she. These feelings and attitudes, expressed in the course of this hour, were symptoms of some profound disturbance.”
― quote from Sybil: The Classic True Story of a Woman Possessed by Sixteen Personalities

“The neurologist had dismissed her case after a single visit, handing out an easy nostrum by telling her father that if she continued to write poetry, she would be all right.”
― quote from Sybil: The Classic True Story of a Woman Possessed by Sixteen Personalities

“Vicky became more serious and her tone more reflective as she remarked, "Life has so much pain that one needs a catharsis. I don't mean escape. You don't escape in books. On the contrary, they help you to realize yourself more fully. Mon Dieu, I'm glad I have them. When I find myself in a situation in which I'd rather not be - because of the perculiar circumstances of my life - I have this outlet. You may think me tres superieure but I'm not really, I am just what I am and live the way I like.”
― quote from Sybil: The Classic True Story of a Woman Possessed by Sixteen Personalities

“She'd abandoned the animal she loved as she herself had been abandoned repeatedly in the past by people who had claimed to love her.”
― quote from Sybil: The Classic True Story of a Woman Possessed by Sixteen Personalities

“It all made sense — terrible sense. The panic she had experienced in the warehouse district because of not knowing what had happened had been superseded at the newsstand by the even greater panic of partial knowledge. And now the torment of partly knowing had yielded to the infinitely greater terror of knowing precisely”
― quote from Sybil: The Classic True Story of a Woman Possessed by Sixteen Personalities

“I realized how trapped I was by all the talk of the end of the world.”
― quote from Sybil: The Classic True Story of a Woman Possessed by Sixteen Personalities

“God fearing and man hating. Sugar sugar. There was so much sugar in the way they pretended to treat each other that I suffered from diabetes of the soul.”
― quote from Sybil: The Classic True Story of a Woman Possessed by Sixteen Personalities

“Willard married his father in female form.”
― quote from Sybil: The Classic True Story of a Woman Possessed by Sixteen Personalities

“You knock yourself down. You don't think much of yourself. That's an uncomfortable feeling. So you project it on others and say, 'They don't like me.”
― quote from Sybil: The Classic True Story of a Woman Possessed by Sixteen Personalities

“After writing the letter Sybil lost almost two days. "Coming to," she stumbled across what she had written just before she had dissociated and wrote to Dr. Wilbur as follows: It's just so hard to have to feel, believe, and admit that I do not have conscious control over my selves. It is so much more threatening to have something out of hand than to believe that at any moment I can stop (I started to say "This foolishness") any time I need to. When I wrote the previous letter, I had made up my mind I would show you how I could be very composed and cool and not need to ask you to listen to me nor to explain anything to me nor need any help. By telling you that all this about the multiple personalities was not really true I could show, or so I thought, that I did not need you. Well, it would be easier if it were put on. But the only ruse of which I'm guilty is to have pretended for so long before coming to you that nothing was wrong. Pretending that the personalities did not exist has now caused me to lose about two days.”
― quote from Sybil: The Classic True Story of a Woman Possessed by Sixteen Personalities

“It is so much more threatening to have something out of hand than to believe that at any moment I can stop (I started to say "This foolishness") any time I need to.”
― quote from Sybil: The Classic True Story of a Woman Possessed by Sixteen Personalities

“It is so much more threatening to have something out of hand than to believe that at any moment I can stop (I started to say "This foolishness") any time I need to. When I wrote the previous letter, I had made up my mind I would show you how I could be very composed and cool and not need to ask you to listen to me nor to explain anything to me nor need any help. By telling you that all this about the multiple personalities was not really true but just put on, I could show, or so I thought, that I did not need you. Well, it would have been easier if it were put on. But the only ruse of which I'm guilty is to have pretended for so long before coming to you that nothing was wrong. Pretending that the personalities did not exist has now caused me to lose about two days.
Three weeks later Sybil reaffirmed her belief in the existence of her other selves in a letter to Miss Updyke, the school nurse of undergraduate days.”
― quote from Sybil: The Classic True Story of a Woman Possessed by Sixteen Personalities

“When I wrote the previous letter, I had made up my mind I would show you how I could be very composed and cool and not need to ask you to listen to me nor to explain anything to me nor need any help. By telling you that all this about the multiple personalities was not really true but just put on, I could show, or so I thought, that I did not need you. Well, it would have been easier if it were put on.”
― quote from Sybil: The Classic True Story of a Woman Possessed by Sixteen Personalities

“Well, it would have been easier if it were put on. But the only ruse of which I'm guilty is to have pretended for so long before coming to you that nothing was wrong. Pretending that the personalities did not exist has now caused me to lose about two days.”
― quote from Sybil: The Classic True Story of a Woman Possessed by Sixteen Personalities

Popular quotes

“<...> when a Chinese wished you ill, he would tell you, “May you live in interesting times.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, quote from The Winter Rose

“I will love you always. When this red hair is white, I will still love you. When the smooth softness of youth is replaced by the delicate softness of age, I will still want to touch your skin. When your face is full of the lines of every smile you have ever smiled, of every surprise I have seen flash through your eyes, when every tear you have ever cried has left its mark upon your face,I will treasure you all the more, because I was there to see it all. I will share your life with you, Meredith, and I will love you until the last breath leaves your body or mine.”
― Laurell K. Hamilton, quote from A Lick of Frost

“I don't ask myself what did I live for, said Carlene strongly. That is a man's question. I ask whom did I live for. ”
― Zadie Smith, quote from On Beauty

“A heads up...so you're not too disappointed that Disney lied - no matter how much you wish it, I'll still be here when you open your eyes.”
― Samantha Young, quote from Down London Road

“I objected vigorously to this unsporting proposal. I recognized in it the disastrous effects of matrimony. How often have I not heard a perfectly intelligent female say, in the tone of one clinching an argument, “Edgar says—” And all the time you are perfectly aware that Edgar is a perfect fool. Suzanne, by reason of her married state, was yearning to lean upon some man or other.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from The Man in the Brown Suit

Interesting books

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.