Schizophrenics Quotes

“I didn't realize there was a ranking." I said. "Sadie frowned. "What do you mean?" "A ranking," I said. "You know, what's crazier than what." "Oh, sure there is," Sadie said. She sat back in her chair. "First you have your generic depressives. They're a dime a dozen and usually pretty boring. Then you've got the bulimics and the anorexics. They're slightly more interesting, although usually they're just girls with nothing better to do. Then you start getting into the good stuff: the arsonists, the schizophrenics, the manic-depressives. You can never quite tell what those will do. And then you've got the junkies. They're completely tragic, because chances are they're just going to go right back on the stuff when they're out of here." "So junkies are at the top of the crazy chain," I said. Sadie shook her head. "Uh-uh," she said. "Suicides are." I looked at her. "Why?" "Anyone can be crazy," she answered. "That's usually just because there's something screwed up in your wiring, you know? But suicide is a whole different thing. I mean, how much do you have to hate yourself to want to just wipe yourself out?”
― Michael Thomas Ford

“Writers are nothing more than borderline schizophrenics who are able to control the voices.”
― Jennifer Salaiz

“You’ve got to reach bedrock to become depressed enough before you are forced to accept the reality and enormity of the problem.”
― Jonathan Harnisch, Jonathan Harnisch: An Alibiography

“I have schizophrenia. I am not schizophrenia. I am not my mental illness. My illness is a part of me.”
― Jonathan Harnisch, Jonathan Harnisch: An Alibiography

“Like each morning he was putting his identity on inside out while dressing in the dark.”
― Vivian Barz, Forgotten Bones

“The schizophrenic... will suddenly burst out with the most incredible details of your life, things that you would never imagine anyone could know and he will tell you in the most abrupt way truths that you believed to be absolutely secret," Félix said in an interview with Caroline Laure and Vittorio Marchetti (Chaosophy). Schizophrenics aren't sunk into themselves. Associatively, they're hyperactive. The world gets cremy like a library. And schizophrenics are the most generous of scholars because they're emotionally right there, they don't just formulate, observe. They're willing to become the situated person's expectations. "The schizophrenic has lightning access to you," Félix continued. "He internalizes all the links between you, makes them part of his subjective system." This is empathy to the highest power: the schizophrenic turns into a seer, then enacts that vision through his or her becoming. But when doen empathy turn into dissolution?”
― Chris Kraus, I Love Dick

“It was the way they had exploited his schizophrenia to their advantage, wielding it to maim a man who was already mentally crippled.”
― Vivian Barz, Forgotten Bones

“Looking back, I realized that we were being raised to be schizophrenic; an appearance of perfection was more important than genuine feelings”
― Tehmina Durrani, My Feudal Lord

“On Christmas. "Santa Claus represents God on assistance," said Clyde.

"Santa Claus is a negative-idealed god, the pagan god of material worship," Leon stated. "Christmas means the rebirth, regeneration. Some people have Christmas every day. The Christmas tree stands up and either the wife trims it or they trim it together with righteous-idealed sexual intercourse. Or the husband prays to God through his Christmas tree and trims his bodily Christmas tree. Christ-mast; the mast of Christ, the upstanding penis—that's what it means to me."

"Santa Claus is a good symbolization for Christmas," said Joseph. "Department stores, shopping, the coming of the New Year. Christmas means better business in the stores.”
― Milton Rokeach, The Three Christs of Ypsilanti: A Psychological Study

“As soon as they leave, Leon says to me: "I disagree, sir. There are people who aren't insane, and I'm one of them. People who generalize are mentally ill.”
― Milton Rokeach, The Three Christs of Ypsilanti: A Psychological Study

“the stigma of severe mental illness leads to prejudice and discrimination. Stigmas are negative and erroneous attitudes about these persons. Unfortunately, stigma's impact on a person's life may be as harmful as the direct effects of the disease.
Corrigan, P. W., & Penn, D. L. (1999). Lessons from social psychology on discrediting psychiatric stigma. American Psychologist, 54(9), 765–776.”
― Patrick W. Corrigan

“Love me, hate me, hurt me or kill me. I keep fighting.”
― Jonathan Harnisch, The Brutal Truth

“Leon was less withdrawn, more friendly, and he was, much of the time, in contact with reality. He was, in other words, getting better. It is our guess that Leon did not want to get better. He did not want to get any closer to us, or to Joseph and Clyde. He was only too aware of the implications of getting better, and he was frightened of them. He had become sick originally for very good reasons, and the reasons had not changed. Thus, although he needed companionship, he wanted it only up to a point, and this point had already been reached and passed. He was beginning to care too much for Joseph and Clyde (and perhaps for us too) and he needed to return to his earlier state of isolation from his fellow man.”
― Milton Rokeach, The Three Christs of Ypsilanti: A Psychological Study

“Leon reads aloud from an article in the Reader's Digest about voting to select a national flower. Leon votes for dandelions. Joseph and Clyde vote for grass.”
― Milton Rokeach, The Three Christs of Ypsilanti: A Psychological Study

“One clear-cut fact does, however, emerge: placebos, prescribed for a paranoid schizophrenic by his authority referent, had served to inhibit for approximately two or three months, not imaginary pains, but somatic ones. This finding is probably the most striking of all the findings reported herein for either Joseph or Leon. It demonstrates most dramatically the positive effects which can be achieved by suggestions originating with the paranoid schizophrenic's own delusional authority figures. This finding is all the more remarkable when one remembers that paranoid schizophrenics are typically negativistic, that, because they view other people with suspicion and mistrust, they resist suggestions that others make. But our data clearly suggest that paranoid schizophrenics are, like everyone else, quite capable of following positive suggestions when they originate with positive referents. In this respect, the major difference between normal people and paranoid schizophrenics lies not so much in the fact that the schizophrenics are less suggestible but in the fact that they have no positive authorities or referents in the real world; if they have any at all, these positive referents exist only in the world of their delusions.”
― Milton Rokeach, The Three Christs of Ypsilanti: A Psychological Study

“Joseph goes to the Social Service Department. "Can I help you?" the secretary inquires. Joseph answers: "Yes, I am God. I've come to see about a release from the hospital.”
― Milton Rokeach, The Three Christs of Ypsilanti: A Psychological Study

“We have already seen that when positive authority suggests a change in behavior, the recipient will accept it provided he is capable of doing so and provided it does not require drastic modification of belief or frustrate important needs. By carrying out the suggestion, one can simultaneously reduce dissonance and preserve intact one's relation to positive authority. But what can reasonably be expected when the suggestion to change is beyond the recipient's capability or frustrates his deep needs or predispositions? In such a situation, a conflict arises between his desire to comply with authority and the abilities or needs which make compliance impossible.

One way to resolve such a conflict situation (or to reduce the dissonance) is to change one's conception of authority. If a suggestion emanating from positive authority is unacceptable, the conflict may be removed by becoming disaffected with the authority and transforming it either into a negative authority or into a nonexistent one. This is exactly what Leon and Joseph did.”
― Milton Rokeach, The Three Christs of Ypsilanti: A Psychological Study