#nation

Suicide is a form of murder— premeditated murder. It isn’t something you do the first time you think of doing it. It takes some getting used to. And you need the means, the opportunity, the motive. A successful suicide demands good organization and a cool head, both of which are usually incompatible with the suicidal state of mind. It’s important to cultivate detachment. One way to do this is to practice imagining yourself dead, or in the process of dying. If there’s a window, you must imagine your body falling out the window. If there’s a knife, you must imagine the knife piercing your skin. If there’s a train coming, you must imagine your torso flattened under its wheels. These exercises are necessary to achieving the proper distance. The debate was wearing me out. Once you've posed that question, it won't go away. I think many people kill themselves simply to stop the debate about whether they will or they won't. Anything I thought or did was immediately drawn into the debate. Made a stupid remark—why not kill myself? Missed the bus—better put an end to it all. Even the good got in there. I liked that movie—maybe I shouldn’t kill myself. In reality, it was only part of myself I wanted to kill: the part that wanted to kill herself, that dragged me into the suicide debate and made every window, kitchen implement, and subway station a rehearsal for tragedy. ↗

— Susanna Kaysen

#memoir #mental-illness #imagination

Harry witnessed Professor McGonagall walking right past Peeves who was determinedly loosening a crystal chandelier and could have sworn he heard her tell the poltergeist out of the corner of her mouth 'It unscrews the other way. ↗

— J.K. Rowling

#j-k-rowling #mcgonagall #peeves #poltergeist #determination

What do you want with these special Jewish pains? I feel as close to the wretched victims of the rubber plantations in Putamayo and the blacks of Africa with whose bodies the Europeans play ball… I have no special corner in my heart for the ghetto: I am at home in the entire world, where there are clouds and birds and human tears. ↗

— Rosa Luxemburg

#africans #antisemitism #compassion #empathy #europeans

There was something in her eyes that made me trust her. Maybe it was because they held the same cynicism, the same world-weariness I saw in my own every morning when I looked at myself in the mirror. ↗

— Melika Dannese Lux

#kindred-spirits #olga-belododia #partners #realization #recognition

Mental illness is so much more complicated than any pill that any mortal could invent ↗

— Elizabeth Wurtzel

#nationalism

Everything's plastic, we're all going to die sooner or later, so what does it matter. ↗

— Elizabeth Wurtzel

#prozac-nation #nationalism

In my case, I was not frightened in the least bit at the thought that I might live because I was certain, quite certain, that I was already dead. ↗

— Elizabeth Wurtzel

#nationalism

But you know as well as I, patriotism is a word; and one that generally comes to mean either my country, right or wrong, which is infamous, or my country is always right, which is imbecile. ↗

— Patrick O'Brian

#maturin #nationalism #nationality #patriotism #stephen-maturin

Habitual procrastinators will readily testify to all the lost opportunities, missed deadlines, failed relationships and even monetary losses incurred just because of one nasty habit of putting things off until it is often too late. ↗

— Stephen Richards

#defer #delay #dilly-dallying #laziness #postpone

...there is still a need for those of us nestled deep within the Christian bubble to look beyond the status quo and critically assess the degree to which we are really living biblically. ↗

— Francis Chan

#christian #christianity #counter-cultural #discipleship #normal