Susanna Kaysen [to Lisa]
I've wasted a year of my life here. Maybe everyone out there is a liar. And maybe the whole world is stupid and ignorant. But I'd rather be in it. I'd rather be **** in it, than down here with you.
2nd most-quoted character in Girl, Interrupted (1999): in 19 of its 32 quotes
Most scenes with: Lisa Rowe (9), Janet Webber (2), Valerie Owens (2)
Have you ever confused a dream with life? Or stolen something when you have the cash? Have you ever been blue? Or thought your train was moving while sitting still? Maybe I was just crazy. Maybe it was the '60's. Or maybe I was just a girl... interrupted.
More lines from Susanna Kaysen
3 quotes Susanna Kaysen Susanna Kaysen [narrating]
Was I ever crazy? Maybe. Or maybe life is... Crazy isn't being broken or swallowing a dark secret. It's you or me amplified. If you ever told a lie and enjoyed it. If you ever wished you could be a child forever. They were not perfect, but they were my friends and by the '70s, most of them were out living lives. Some I've seen, some never again, but there isn't a day my heart doesn't find them.
Susanna Kaysen I know what its like to want to die. How it hurts to smile. How you try to fit in, but you can't. How you hurt yourself on the outside, to try to kill the thing on the inside.
Scenes with Susanna Kaysen
15 scenes
Dr. Crumble Susanna, four days ago, you chased a bottle of aspirin with a bottle of vodka.
Susanna Kaysen I had a headache.
Susanna Kaysen What the **** are you doing, Lisa?
I'm playing the villain, baby, just like you want. I try to give you everything you want.
Susanna Kaysen No you don't.
You wanted your file, I found you your file. You wanted out, I got you out. You needed money, I found you some. I'm **** consistent. I told you the truth. I didn't write it down in a **** book! I told you to your face. And I told Daisy to her face - what everybody knew and wouldn't say, and she killed herself. And I played the **** villain, just like you wanted.
Susanna Kaysen Why would I want that?
Because it makes you the good guy, sweet pea. You come back here, all sweetness and light, and sad and contrite, and everybody congratulating you on your bravery. And meanwhile, I'm blowing the guys at the bus station for the money that was in her **** robe!
Susanna Kaysen Oh my God... a guy I know was drafted.
What's his name?
Susanna Kaysen Toby.
He's dead now.
So, have you had your first Melvin yet?
Susanna Kaysen Who's that?
Bald guy with a little pecker and a fat wife. You're ther-rapist, sweet pea. Unless, uh... unless they're giving you shocks. Or, God forbid, letting you out. Then you get to see the great, wonderful Dr. ****.
She means Dr. Wick.
Susanna Kaysen Oh, I've been in his office, but I haven't met him yet.
M.G. He's a she. Dr. Wick's a girl.
That's right, M.G., Wick's a chick.
M.G. Wick's a chick.
Hence the nickname.
My dad got me an apartment.
Susanna Kaysen Really? Where?
It's near the airport. One bedroom, two baths, eat-in chicken.
Susanna Kaysen You mean eat-in kitchen.
That's what I said, asshole. So what do you have that I want?
Oh, Jesus! Get out! GET OUT!
[Lisa enters and shuts the door behind her]
Come on Dais, don't take advantage of her just because she's new. Pony up some Valium.
Get the **** out of here or I'm calling Valerie! VALERIE!
Yeah, why don't you call Valerie, shall we? Let's call Valerie and ask her for some Colace just like Suzie Q's got in her ****in' hand. Why does it stink in here?
Georgina Tuskin Lisa, is Daisy really getting out?
Yeah, she coughed up a big one.
Susanna Kaysen But how could - I mean she's... insane.
Yeah, well that's what ther-rape-me's all about. That's why ****in' Freud's pictures on every shrink's wall. He created a ****in' industry. You lie down, you confess your secrets and you're saved. Ca-ching! The more you confess, the more they think about settin' you free.
Susanna Kaysen But what if you don't have a secret?
Then you're a lifer, like me.
Susanna Kaysen [picks up phone]
Hello.
Susanna Kaysen Who is this?
What'd he say to Mom and Pop?
Susanna Kaysen [Susanna looks out and sees Lisa staring back at her two booths back]
I have a Borderline Personality.
Oh, well that's nothing. What else?
Susanna Kaysen He didn't say. Thought it would affect my recovery.
All right, listen. Tongue your meds tonight. After 1 o'clock checks, Gretta always goes out for a smoke. Check the mirrors and if they're clear, you go down to Hector's closet. It's near the art room and it will be open.
We are very rare and we are mostly men.
Lisa thinks she's hot shit 'cause she's a sociopath.
Cynthia Crowley I'm a sociopath.
No, you're a ****.
Susanna Kaysen [reading from a book]
"Borderline Personality Disorder. An instability of self-image, relationships and moods... uncertainty about goals, impulsive in activities that are self-damaging, such as casual sex."
I like that.
Susanna Kaysen "Social contrariness and a generally pessimistic attitude and often observed" Well, that's me.
That's everybody.
Susanna Kaysen I mean, what kind of sex isn't casual?
They mean promiscuous.
Susanna Kaysen I'm not promiscuous. I'm not.
You know, I can take a lot of crazy shit from a lot of crazy people. But you? You are not crazy.
Susanna Kaysen Then what's wrong with me, huh? What the **** is going on inside my head? Tell me, Dr. Val, what's your diag-nonsense?
[hovering over Susanna]
You are a lazy, self-indulgent little girl who is driving herself crazy.
Susanna Kaysen Is that your... professional opinion, huh? Is that what you've learned in your advanced studies at night school for Negro Welfare Mothers? I mean, Melvin doesn't have a clue, Wick is a psycho, and you... you pretend to be a doctor. You sign the charts and dole out meds. But "you ain't no doctor, Miss Valerie. You ain't nothing but a black nursemaid."
And you're just throwing that away.
Susanna Kaysen You don't want me.
Unnamed Groupie
Yes I do, baby.
Susanna Kaysen No, you don't, I'm a crazy girl.
Unnamed Groupie
You're crazy so we can't have one night of bliss?
Susanna Kaysen I am a crazy girl, seriously.
Unnamed Groupie
You've been in a hospital?
Susanna Kaysen Yes.
Unnamed Groupie
Do you see purple people? My friend, he saw purple people. And so the state came and took him away. He didn't like that. Some time went by and, and he told 'em he didn't see purple people no more.
Susanna Kaysen He got better.
Unnamed Groupie
Nah, he still sees 'em.
You're just jealous, Lisa... because I got better... because I was released... because I have a chance... at a life.
They didn't release you 'cause you're better, Daisy, they just gave up. You call this a life, hmm? Taking Daddy's money, buying your dollies and your knickknacks. And eating his ****in' chicken, fattening up like a prize ****in' heifer. You changed the scenery, but not the ****in' situation, and the warden makes housecalls. And everybody knows, everybody knows that he ****s you. What they don't know is that you like it, hmm? You like it.
Susanna Kaysen [to Lisa]
Shut the **** up!
Hey, man, it's cool, it's okay. It's fine, it's **** fine! A man is a dick is a man is a dick is a chicken... is a dad... a Valium, a speculum, whatever, whatever. [to Daisy] You like being Mrs. Randone. Probably all you've ever known.
Have fun in Florida. [goes upstairs to her room]
Susanna Kaysen I don't know. That I was sorry. That I will never know what it was like to be her. But I know what it's like to want to die. How it hurts to smile. How you try to fit in but you can't. You hurt yourself on the outside to try to kill the thing on the inside.
Susanna, it's all and well and good to tell me all this; but you gotta tell some of this to your doctors.
Susanna Kaysen How the hell am I suppose to recover when I don't even understand my disease?
But you do understand it. You spoke very clearly about it a second ago. But I think what you gotta do is put it down. Put it away. Put it in your notebook, but get it out of yourself. Away so you can't curl up with it anymore.
Susanna Kaysen Lisa thinks it's a gift. That it let's you see the truth.
Lisa's been here for eight years.
Susanna Kaysen [crying]
I'm so sorry. I was a bitch, I was a bitch.
Do not drop anchor here, you understand?
Susanna Kaysen [narrating]
When you don't want to feel, death seem like a dream. But seeing death, really seeing it, makes dreaming about it **** ridiculous. Maybe, there's a moment growing up when something peels back... Maybe, maybe, we look for secrets because we can't believe our minds... [overlapping words] All I know is that there's I began to feel things again. Whatever I was, I knew that there was only one way back to the world, and that was to use the place to talk. So I saw the great and wonderful Dr. Wick three times a week, and let her hear every thought in my head.
You know, there's too many buttons in the world. There's too many buttons and they're just - there's way too many just begging to be pressed, they're just begging to be pressed, you know? They're just - they're just begging to be pressed! And it makes me wonder, it really makes me **** wonder, why doesn't anyone ever press mine? Why am I so neglected? Why doesn't anyone reach in and rip out the truth and tell me that I'm a **** whore, or that my parents wish I were dead?
Susanna Kaysen Because you're dead already, Lisa! No one cares if you die, Lisa, because you're dead already. Your heart is cold. That's why you keep coming back here. You're not free. You need this place to feel alive. It's pathetic.
[Lisa's arms and legs are strapped to the bed. Susanna takes out nail polish and starts painting Lisa's nails] [crying]
I'm not really dead.
Susanna Kaysen I know.
I'm gonna miss you, Suzie Q.
Susanna Kaysen No, you're not. You're going get out of here, and you're gonna come and see me. Okay?
Susanna Kaysen [Susanna is leaving. Georgina sheepishly looks up from the cards she's playing with]
Hey, Georgina? You know all that stuff I write in my journals? I don't know what I'm saying. They're just... thoughts. Who knows, maybe I'm the liar.
Georgina Tuskin Maybe not. [They hug]
