The Eden Express Quotes

“Knowing that you're crazy doesn't make the crazy things stop happening.”
― Mark Vonnegut, 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, The Eden Express: A Memoir of Insanity

“Having their feelings make sense is how people get their kicks.”
― Mark Vonnegut, 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, 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, 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, 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, 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, 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, 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, The Eden Express: A Memoir of Insanity