Brain On Fire: My Month Of Madness Quotes
"I'm just so excited! I feel like myself again, and I have so much to talk to you about."
"But I know. I mean, I know myself better than anyone, right? So I should know if I have it. And I know that I do."
"I am not dead yet. I am dying because of him, because of that lab technician."
"I can see myself from above, like I’m floating above myself looking down."
"I want to do more stories. Better stories. Bigger stories. Not the feature bullshit. The real stuff."
"There's something wrong with me. This is how a crazy person acts."
"Basically, I’m bipolar and that’s what makes me ME. I just have to get control of my life."
"Routine is important to me, as is discipline without it I tend to go a little bit haywire."
"It is only through mystery and madness that the soul is revealed."
"I want coffee. Get me coffee. Now. I’m hungry. Feed me."
"I’m not safe here. I look up at the video cameras. They are watching me."
"I can age people with my mind. This is who I am. And they cannot take this away from me."
"No one wants to think of herself as a monster."
"We will figure this out. Susannah will be fine."
"The brain is a monstrous, beautiful mess."
"Under normal conditions, each antibody fits exactly to only one pathogen, like Cinderella’s glass slipper."
"I’m suddenly filled with blinding, focused rage."
"We’re going to put her on an aggressive treatment of steroids, IVIG treatment, and plasmapheresis."
"It’s okay, Susannah, just drop it. You’re tired."
"It's amazing how powerless I felt at that moment, especially compared to the superhuman control I had enjoyed during the height of my psychosis."
"The realization that being social is a great skill came as I struggled to conjure the loquaciousness that was once a primary aspect of my personality."
"My mind continued to circle around that vast emptiness, screaming inside to say something, but nothing came."
"There's more we don't know about the disease than we do know."
"I'm the one who is lucky. I did not slip through a system that is designed to miss cases just like my own."
"I felt as if my 'self' was trying to communicate with the outside world but couldn't break past the broken intermediary, my body."
"Often, like at the party and the wedding just a few weeks before, I felt as if my 'self' was trying to communicate with the outside world but couldn’t break past the broken intermediary, my body."
"This disease bursts you wide open, and after surviving so much, you're finally prepared to give back and willing to help anyone else who may be going through similar upheavals."
"Though coworkers almost certainly walked on eggshells around me that first month, I didn’t notice."
"Sometimes, just when we need them, life wraps metaphors up in little bows for us."
"I often felt like Tom Sawyer attending his own funeral; it’s a strange kind of gift."
"I talk fast again, can do my job with ease, feel comfortable in my own skin, and recognize myself in pictures."
"No matter how 'normal' I feel, I will never be the same person that I was before."
"Those who did not have a teratoma, like me, have a higher rate of relapse, for reasons unknown."
"Is it the lighting, or am I going crazy again?"
"Though I’m eternally grateful for this, sometimes it became exasperating."
"If all I remember are hallucinations, how can I rely on my own mind?"
"The brain perceives an outward sensation—vision, sound, or touch—but there is no corresponding external source."