The Girl in the Castle

But being mentally ill wasn’t like drowning, even if it sometimes felt like it. Because the thing about drowning is that someone else can save you, whether you want them to or not. And the thing about struggling with mental illness is that you have to be part of saving yourself.

And the deepest, most terrible. truth is this: the number of things we understand will always be dwarfed by the quantity of things that we don't.

Hannah?” he says. “Hi! Can you… see me?” She wipes her nose on her sleeve. “What kind of question is that? I’m not in here for blindness.

What do you do when you slap Dwayne Johnson’s ass?” I said, “I really don’t know.” “You hit The Rock bottom,” he said.

How come they can take out tumors, but they can’t take out thoughts?

We cannot stop them from coming,” he said. “But when they get here, we will drive them back.

No thank you. I wanted to keep everything closed up tight inside me where it was safe.

The laws of physics are totally different from human laws, because human laws are decisions,” Ellie says. “They aren’t facts.

Why is it that hearts know how to beat, and lungs unfailingly take in oxygen, while the brain, which is supposedly in charge of everything, sits up there in its bone case and screws everything up?

Could happen. All I know is, if I was, like, riddled with cancer, I could be cured tomorrow. My parents would pay all the money in the world for the greatest doctors in the history of mankind, and snap, I’d be healed.” She slipped her hand out of mine and slapped it against her forehead. “How come they can take out tumors, but they can’t take out thoughts?

What can you do? I was born like this. Just like I have red hair and big feet, and like you can’t help looking like Lily Collins, I have this thing that comes over me—like this awful black fog or something—and when I’m inside it, there’s no light or happiness or meaning. I can’t describe how awful it is, because the words don’t exist. When I’m in the fog, I just need to get out of it again. And dying feels like the fastest way.” “But it’s the worst way,” I said. “You know that, right? You can’t get better if you’re dead.” “When I’m inside that fog I don’t believe there’s any way to get better.

Haven’t you read all the studies about how being a good reader makes you a better person?” Hannah asks him. “I’ve only read the headlines,” he says. She laughs. “Pitiful.” “I think I’m doing okay,

Can you enjoy being on a psychiatric ward, caring for people living through the worst moments of their lives? Unless your empathy button’s broken, he’s not sure you can. You can love it, maybe, but you’re not going to find it fun.

Most of us tried to keep our problems as private as we could, guarding those scary parts of ourselves like they were a treasure instead of a curse.

Dreams don’t have anything to do with wish fulfillment. They’re more like—well, like your mind takes a giant dump every night, and the result is a bunch of weird, nonsensical stories that happen to you while you’re sleeping

How could I desire him like this when I was so full of sorrow? And would he desire me enough to help take me away from here, even for a few stolen moments?

Have you ever felt a beloved hand grow cold in yours? If not, then I don’t expect you to understand.

I measure every Grief I meet With narrow, probing, eyes— I wonder if It weighs like Mine— Or has an Easier size. —EMILY DICKINSON