The Suicide Index Quotes

“And while some healing does happen, it isn't a healing of redemption or epiphany. It's more like the slow absorption of a bruise.”
― Joan Wickersham, The Suicide Index: Putting My Father's Death in Order

“The word "miss" is so wistful. As is the word "wistful," for that matter. They both have sighs embedded in them, that "iss" sound. Which also sounds like if.”
― Joan Wickersham, The Suicide Index: Putting My Father's Death in Order

“Those moments of knowing are sharp and merciless, but then they fade out, like stars when the sky gets light in the morning. You know, and then you don't know.”
― Joan Wickersham, The Suicide Index: Putting My Father's Death in Order

“It's Violent.
You imagine it deafening, red, boiling-hot. It's like a comic book: the bright colors, the crude outlines, the words in capital letters: BANG!SMASH!CRUNCH! You think "smithereens."
You crave the explosion.”
― Joan Wickersham, The Suicide Index: Putting My Father's Death in Order

“Young" and "Poor" sounded so promising, the way my mother always told the story. Temporary conditions: poignant "befores" that existed only to contrast with the triumphant "afters.”
― Joan Wickersham, The Suicide Index: Putting My Father's Death in Order

“Suicide isn’t just a death, it’s an accusation. It’s a violent, public declaration of loneliness. It’s a repudiation of connection. It says, “You weren’t enough to keep me here.” It sets up unresolvable dilemmas of culpability and fault: were we to blame for being insufficient, or was he to blame for finding us so? Someone had been weighed and found wanting, but who?”
― Joan Wickersham, The Suicide Index: Putting My Father's Death in Order

“I forgot it all again, afterward. Those moments of knowing are sharp and merciless, but then they fade out, like stars when the sky gets light in the morning. You know, and then you don’t know. And then comes another moment when you’re learning—something new, or the same things over and over again.”
― Joan Wickersham, The Suicide Index: Putting My Father's Death in Order

“Or maybe she simply couldn't stay merry. That subversive, candid merriment of hers was enchanting, electric; but it was a social phenomenon. It was something elicited by, and dazzling to, a new acquaintance. It was like makeup: it looked good in public, but in private, sooner or later it had to come off.”
― Joan Wickersham, The Suicide Index: Putting My Father's Death in Order

“That's how it went between us. We would have a horrible fight, which at the time would feel insurmountable. It was impossible to see how we would continue from there. And then somehow, we would continue.”
― Joan Wickersham, The Suicide Index: Putting My Father's Death in Order

“You are like a nearsighted person who can see the cracks in the bowl when she's wearing glasses -- and so chooses not to wear glasses while looking at the bowl.”
― Joan Wickersham, The Suicide Index: Putting My Father's Death in Order

“Not just the beating. The words. 'Boris, you're stubborn, lazy, worthless, you can't do anything right, you're evil' -- at least once I heard him call Boris evil. When you grow up with things like that, you never get rid of them, never. Words like that are a tape that plays in your head for the rest of your life.”
― Joan Wickersham, The Suicide Index: Putting My Father's Death in Order