Olivia

“If you have been sick for long, long time, Prozac may make you high. It probably won't make you high the way pot and acid do; it will make you high by returning you to a world you've forgotten or never quite managed to be a part of, but a world nevertheless, that you at first fit into with the precision of a key to a lock or a neurotransmitter to its receptor.”
― Lauren Slater, Prozac Diary

“William talks about there being two kinds of will. Will A and Will B, I call it. Will A is what we all learn, to hold your head high, stuff it down, swallow your sobs, work hard kind of will. Will B, while it seems a slacker thing, is actually harder to have. It's a willingness instead of a willfulness, an ability to take life on life's terms as opposed to putting up a big fight. It's about being bendable, not brittle, a person who is brave enough to try to ride the waves instead of trying to stop them. Will B is what you need in order to learn to fall. It's the kind of will my mother never taught me, and yours probably never taught you either. It's a secret greater than sex; it's a spiritual thing. Will B is not passive. It means an active acceptance, a say yes, and you have to have a voice and courage if you want to learn it.”
― Lauren Slater, Lying: A Metaphorical Memoir

“It should come as no surprise that this was so, that after years of illness my remission on that first drugged day – confusing, yes, portending loss, yes – was also a blessing, pure and simple. No, not a blessing, a redemption, both bright and blinding, heaven opening me up, letting me in. Good morning.”
― Lauren Slater, Prozac Diary

“I had lived my life by these kinds of banners, only now, searching the sentence, I found little in it that resonated deep in my bones. I had a cerebral sort of appreciation for the sentence, or perhaps, an appreciation based in memory, the way one remembers with fondness a past partner whom one no longer loves.”
― Lauren Slater, Prozac Diary