Mark Vonnegut · 301 pages
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“Knowing that you're crazy doesn't make the crazy things stop happening.”
― Mark Vonnegut, quote from The Eden Express: A Memoir of Insanity
“It's regrets that make painful memories. When I was crazy I did everything just right.”
― Mark Vonnegut, quote from The Eden Express: A Memoir of Insanity
“Having their feelings make sense is how people get their kicks.”
― Mark Vonnegut, quote from The Eden Express: A Memoir of Insanity
“Fear that I was very different from everyone else. Fear that deep down inside I was a shallow fraud, that after the revolution or after Jesus came down to straighten everything out, everyone from hippies to hard-hats would unfold and blossom into the beautiful people they were while I would remain a gnarled little wart in the corner, oozing bile and giving off putrid smells.”
― Mark Vonnegut, quote from The Eden Express: A Memoir of Insanity
“I often took him as one of God's little jokes on me. When I was in desperate trouble, what saved me from a fate worse than death? To what do I owe my life? Was it love, affection, understanding, friends, wisdom? No no no. It was a man who looks like a poor copy of Walt Disney, drives pink Cadillacs, wears baby-blue alligator shoes, and appears to have the emotional depth of a slightly retarded potato.”
― Mark Vonnegut, quote from The Eden Express: A Memoir of Insanity
“The way I played music there was the way I wanted to farm, chop wood, cook, make love, raise children. Everything. A lo of it had to do with things I felt while I played. If only I could feel that sense of total absorption in what I was doing when I was doing other things. It was more than absorption, it was spontaneity, competence, a sense of grace and playfulness, of being in touch with an inexhaustible source of energy and beauty.”
― Mark Vonnegut, quote from The Eden Express: A Memoir of Insanity
“After my first few tastes I was pretty much hooked. I'd have dry spells, months without any or only piddling amounts of grace, but I never forgot about it or stopped wanting it.”
― Mark Vonnegut, quote from The Eden Express: A Memoir of Insanity
“The first meeting I really remember with the good doctor was when I was starting to be able to speak English again and making a brave attempt to regain some of my dignity. Trying to be very sane, I went up to him and asked if he was my doctor. He said he didn't think so.
"You're Dr. Dale, aren't you?"
"Why, Mark, of course. I didn't recognize you with clothes on." He had a talent for saying just the right thing.”
― Mark Vonnegut, quote from The Eden Express: A Memoir of Insanity
“I’m willing to make sense as soon as the rest of the world does.”
― Mark Vonnegut, quote from The Eden Express: A Memoir of Insanity
“I was back to being polite, the well-tempered paranoid. I didn't have much of a choice. If I wasn't polite, they could stick me with those needles or put me back in that little room or take away my visitor privileges or any number of other things. Besides, there didn't seem to be any urgency or anything to be gained by not being polite, the way there had been before. So I was polite. There was time.”
― Mark Vonnegut, quote from The Eden Express: A Memoir of Insanity
“I’m subject to occasional theological nightmares. The one that leaves me in a cold sweat every time is, I arrive at the pearly gates and the first thing I’m asked is where I went to college.”
― Mark Vonnegut, quote from The Eden Express: A Memoir of Insanity
“The Doc. Virginia and Simon had told me that Dr. Dale was my doctor. I have a fuzzy recollection of walking up to some doctor-looking person and being totally absorbed by his gold tie clip. I suspected it was the button to end the world so I didn't touch it. I'm pretty sure it was Dr. Dale. I don't know who else would be so tasteless as to walk around a mental hospital wearing the button to end the world.”
― Mark Vonnegut, quote from The Eden Express: A Memoir of Insanity
“But my biggest joy and best education and proudest achievement has been being able to show up for work and life and not cause too much trouble a day at a time in spite of my hysterical, somewhat dramatic, nature.”
― Mark Vonnegut, quote from The Eden Express: A Memoir of Insanity
“At the time I would have endorsed the radical notions of R. D. Laing that insanity was a sane reaction to an insane society. Leaving the insane society to set up an independent self-sufficient commune seemed like a very sensible noble brave thing to do—plus it figured to be good for my mental health. Had I gone crazy in Boston or New York I would have blamed my culture and society without a second thought. The arguments were all packed, polished, and ready to fly.”
― Mark Vonnegut, quote from The Eden Express: A Memoir of Insanity
“Looking at mental health problems the same way we look at other medical problems is factually correct—the best bet for reducing the disabling symptoms and the only way to lessen the stigma and blame that traditionally double or triple the pain.”
― Mark Vonnegut, quote from The Eden Express: A Memoir of Insanity
“Having rationally decided to become less rational, we hoped to find new, meaningful, exciting, useful truths. Folk”
― Mark Vonnegut, quote from The Eden Express: A Memoir of Insanity
“Maybe just being open to things being connected made us see more. Now I shudder whenever I find that sort of connectedness creeping into my life.”
― Mark Vonnegut, quote from The Eden Express: A Memoir of Insanity
“In a funny way it's almost fun, having everything be so fucked up and managing to adjust. I guess you might say I'm proud. Proud of me, proud of my friends for managing to deal with this thing so well. For most people this would be the end of the world. They'd panic, their friends would panic. Things would get trampled in the stampede. But we've kept our heads, made the necessary allowances, ad can just ride this thing out.
I'm pretty much just putting in time waiting for this cloud to blow over. Waiting for something to come along to make some sense out of all this. Killing time, waiting for some sort of cavalry to come over the hill. There's really not an awful lot I can do but wait. As long as there's no panic, we can hold out for damn near forever.”
― Mark Vonnegut, quote from The Eden Express: A Memoir of Insanity
“In my more lucid moments I realized that insanity was a fairly reasonable explanation for what was happening to me. The problem was that it wasn't useful information. Realizing I was crazy didn't make the crazy stuff stop happening. Nor did it give me any clues about what I should do next.”
― Mark Vonnegut, quote from The Eden Express: A Memoir of Insanity
“For me to have sat around calling the crazy stuff "crazy" would have been the most wasteful, unimaginative thing I could have done. There were so many much better things to do with it.”
― Mark Vonnegut, quote from The Eden Express: A Memoir of Insanity
“I was back to being polite, the well-tempered paranoid. I didn't have much choice. If I wasn't polite, they could stick me with those needles or put me back in that little room or take away my visitor privileges or any number of other things. Besides, there didn't seem any urgency or anything to be gained by not being polite, the way there had been before. So I was polite. There was time.”
― Mark Vonnegut, quote from The Eden Express: A Memoir of Insanity
Mark Vonnegut
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“The baby regarded Mike gravely as she discoursed to it about a poor drowned woofum-wuffums, and did the bad man treat it badly, then. The baby belched eloquently.
“He belches in English!” I remarked.
“Did it have the windy ripples?” cooed Mike. “Give us a kiss, honey lamb.”
The baby immediately flung its little arms around her neck and planted a whopper on her mouth.
“Wow!” said Mike when she got her breath. “Shorty, could you take lessons!”
“Lessons my eye,” I said jealously. “Mike, that’s no baby, that’s some old guy in his second childhood.”
― Theodore Sturgeon, quote from The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon, Volume II: Microcosmic God
“moaned his final breath into the imitation Oriental.”
― Dennis Lehane, quote from Live by Night
“Edinolochniks [individual peasant farmers] are whitewashing their khatas [simple Ukrainian houses]. They look at us with a challenge in their eyes: ‘It’s Easter.’ The implication behind this strange remark in autumn was the hint that they were celebrating the arrival of the most joyful moment of the year. Some historians have suggested that the Germans, with black crosses on their vehicles, were seen as bringing Christian liberation to a population oppressed by Soviet atheism. Many Ukrainians did welcome the Germans with bread and salt, and many Ukrainian girls consorted cheerfully with German soldiers. It is hard to gauge the scale of this phenomenon in statistical terms, but it is significant that the Abwehr, the Germany Army intelligence department, recommended that an army of a million Ukrainians should be raised to fight the Red Army. This was firmly rejected by Hitler who was horrified at the suggestion of Slavs fighting in Wehrmacht uniform.”
― Vasily Grossman, quote from A Writer at War: Vasily Grossman with the Red Army
“Oftentimes your conscious mind interferes with the normal rhythm of the heart, lungs, and functioning of the stomach and intestines by worry, anxiety, fear, and depression. These patterns of thought interfere with the harmonious functioning of your subconscious mind. When mentally disturbed, the best procedure is to let go, relax, and still the wheels of your thought processes. Speak to your subconscious mind, telling it to take over in peace, harmony, and divine order. You will find that all the functions of your body will become normal again. Be sure to speak to your subconscious mind with authority and conviction, and it will conform to your command.”
― Joseph Murphy, quote from THE POWER OF YOUR SUBCONSCIOUS MIND (Tamil)
“Alice was an odd girl, even for Ferenwood, where the sun occasionally rained and the colors were brighter than usual and magic was as common as a frowning parent.”
― Tahereh Mafi, quote from Furthermore
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