Susanna Kaysen
Born: 11-10-1948
Susanna Kaysen is an American author best known for her memoir "Girl, Interrupted," which recounts her experiences as a young woman in a psychiatric hospital. Born in 1948, she grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and is the daughter of economist Carl Kaysen. Her writing often explores themes of mental illness and identity. Kaysen has also penned novels and essays, contributing significantly to contemporary literature.
Book summaries for books written by Susanna Kaysen
Quotes
Have you ever confused a dream with life?
Was madness in fact merely a disease like any other?
I told the doctor I was feeling suicidal. He told me I was just being dramatic.
Crazy isn’t being broken or swallowing a dark secret. It’s you or me amplified.
Scar tissue has no character. It's not like skin. It doesn’t show age or illness or pallor; it has no pores, no hair, no wrinkles. It’s like a slipcover.
The world didn’t stop because we weren’t in it anymore.
It is easier to behave yourself into a new way of thinking than to think yourself into a new way of behaving.
We say that the truth will make us free. Yes, but that truth is a thousand truths which grow and change.
When you’re sad you need to hear your sorrow structured into sound.
Suicide is a form of murder—premeditated murder. It isn’t something you do the first time you think of doing it. It takes getting used to.
I wanted to ignore it, to forget it, but I couldn't. It was part of me, and it wouldn't let go.
I was never suicidal. I was just confused. And the confusion was about who I am.