Nic Sheff > Quotes

“As long as you look for someone else to validate who you are by seeking their approval, you are setting yourself up for disaster. You have to be whole and complete in yourself. No one can give you that. You have to know who you are - what others say is irrelevant.”
― Nic Sheff

“It's like if the music is loud enough I won't be able to listen to my own thoughts. ”
― Nic Sheff, Tweak: Growing Up On Methamphetamines

“And though I have done many shameful things, I am not ashamed of who I am. I am not ashamed of who I am because I know who I am. I have tried to rip myself open and expose everything inside - accepting my weaknesses and strengths - not trying to be anyone else. 'Cause that never works, does it?

So my challenge is to be authentic. An I believe I am today. I believe I am.”
― Nic Sheff, Tweak: Growing Up On Methamphetamines

“I always get so overwhelmed trying to do everything perfectly. I can't do a job and not put everything I have into it. I need to be the best employee, the best co-worker, the best whatever. I need everyone to like me and I just burn out bending over backward to make that happen. Having people be mad at me is my worst fear. I can't stand it. There is this crazy fear I have of being rejected by anyone - even people I don't really care about. It's always better to leave them first, cut all ties, and disappear. They can't hurt me that way - no one can. ”
― Nic Sheff, Tweak: Growing Up On Methamphetamines

“they say suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. the problem with being human isn't really so temporary.”
― Nic Sheff, Tweak: Growing Up On Methamphetamines

“Isn't that the greatest gift in the world-just not to care? ”
― Nic Sheff, Tweak: Growing Up On Methamphetamines

“I feel so completely crazy sometimes. I don't know which way I'm facing. All I can do is just shove all this shit to the side and try to move forward. ”
― Nic Sheff, Tweak: Growing Up On Methamphetamines

“None of them seem as crazy obsessive about everything as I am. It's strange 'cause I had the same feeling in high school that I have here. It's like, well, it just seems so easy for everyone else and so difficult for me. I turn from these extremes of feeling on top of the fucking world - to feeling so despondent. They don't have to struggle like I do - or maybe that's just me comparing my goddamn insides to everyone else's outsides. But I swear to God, I just seem to wrestle with everything more than anyone else.”
― Nic Sheff, Tweak: Growing Up On Methamphetamines

“It was like being in a car with the gas pedal slammed down to the floor and nothing to do but hold on and pretend to have some semblance of control. But control was something I'd lost a long time ago.”
― Nic Sheff

“I feel just, you know, defeated. ”
― Nic Sheff, Tweak: Growing Up On Methamphetamines

“There's something about outward appearances that has always been important to me. I always thought I was so ugly. I mean, I really did. I remember being in L.A. at my mom's house as a little kid and just staring into the mirror for hours. It was like, if I looked long enough, maybe I'd finally be handsome. It never worked. I just got uglier and uglier. Nothing about me ever seemed good enough. And there was this sadness inside me - this hopelessness. Focusing on my physical appearance was at least easier than trying to address the internal shit.”
― Nic Sheff, Tweak: Growing Up On Methamphetamines

“ Honestly, I'm not sure how much longer I can keep doing this. It's like there are seven candles lit in my stomach. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Seven candles burning and smoking - lit - seven flames of doubt, fear, sorrow, pain, waste, hopelessness, despair. They turn my insides black with soot and ash. There is something at the back of my eyes- a pressure building, building, building - hot like the flames of seven candles, which no amount of breath can extinguish.
I imagine drinking glasses of water. One, two, three four, five, six, seven. I dive into the clearest pool. I drown myself in the coarse, dry sand. I swallow handfuls of crushed white salt, but the flames burn still - brighter, hotter, deeper. Sweat runs in delicate patterns down my back, over my crooked spine and jutting hips. I scratch at the wounds these last weeks have left, but I can't break free of them. The flies gather and vultures circle overhead. The fire eats away my flesh. The fire spreads. The fire runs through my veins. The fire courses beneath my muscles - my tendons - the marrow of my bones.
I sit rocking on the street corner. No, I can't keep doing this. I just can't.”
― Nic Sheff, Tweak: Growing Up On Methamphetamines

“We only have this one moment: NOW.”
― Nic Sheff, Tweak: Growing Up On Methamphetamines

“And that feeling is there, inside me - being small, with all the confusion and worry and longing - but also the peace and safety. And now I'm here, giving that feeling to Lucy. She is an angel - light and sweet and delicate and lovely. That is so there in her. But it's also in Spencer, in my dad lying with me as a child on the futon, It's even in me. Sure, I buried it. I buried and buried it and turned away from everything light and sweet and delicate and lovely and became so scared and scarred and burdened and fucked up. But that goodness is still there, inside - it must be.”
― Nic Sheff, Tweak: Growing Up On Methamphetamines

“I don't want you to worry about protecting my feelings or your father's or anybody's. When you were little you always tried to make everyone ahppy. Then it was like one day you just exploded.”
― Nic Sheff, Tweak: Growing Up On Methamphetamines

“It's like there are seven candles lit in my stomach. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Seven candles burning and smoking - lit - seven flames of doubt, fear, sorrow, pain, waste, hopelessness, despair. They turn my insides black with soot and ash. There is something at the back of my eyes - a pressure building, building, building - hot like the flames of seven candles, which no amount of breath can extinguish.”
― Nic Sheff

“We go out into this fucked up world together.”
― Nic Sheff, We All Fall Down: Living with Addiction

“The dark is settling in. The sky glows yellow- pale- anemic from the city lights. The Tenderloin at night is a real horror show. Every 3 feet someone is accosting you with a plea for a handout or the offer of drug or sex. The men and women wander the streets and alleys with a threatening, violont want. Takers looking to take, hustlers looking to hustle, all trying to satisfy a craving that is parpatually unsatisfiable. And tonight I'm one of them.”
― Nic Sheff, Tweak: Growing Up On Methamphetamines

“But, when I was growing up, the one thing that did help me not to feel so isolated and crazy was reading - especially books by authors who fearlessly examined and exposed their highly imperfect inner lives. Books like "Confessions of a Mask" by Yukio Mishima; "Tropic of Cancer" by Henry Miller; "Try" by Dennis Cooper; and, of course, the works of authors like Bukowski, Salinger, Hesse, Bataille, Iceberg Slim, and Murakami. These writers revealed the things that existed beneath most humans' seemingly secure and confident exteriors. I suddenly realized, after reading their work, that I wasn't unique - that my doubts and fears and insecurities were more universal that I could've ever imagined. Their words gave me strength. They have me permission to start trying to accept my flaws, my darkness, my insanity. They let me know that it was okay not to fit in with everyone else - to be a sensitive person - and that others struggled just like I did. It was such a relief when I finally began to understand this. It was like I could breathe - maybe for the first time.”
― Nic Sheff, Tweak: Growing Up On Methamphetamines

“They say suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. he problem with being humas isn't really so temporary”
― Nic Sheff, Tweak: Growing Up On Methamphetamines

“You have got to get creative if you want anyone to notice your goddamn teenage angst.”
― Nic Sheff, Schizo

“What’s glamorous is being a good father, a good husband, a good fucking dog owner. That’s what I care about today. That’s what matters. I will devote everything to that. And I will succeed. Because I cannot fall down again. I will not fall down again. I mean, I don’t have to fall. None of us have to fall. We don’t all fall down. We don’t. So I’m over this drug shit. It’s done. And this is my last recovery memoir ever.”
― Nic Sheff, We All Fall Down: Living with Addiction

“I need everyone to like me and I just burn out bending over backward to make that happen. Having people be mad at me is my worst fear. I can't stand it. There is this crazy fear I have of being rejected by anyone - even people I don't really care about. It's always better to leave them first, cut all ties, and disappear. They can't hurt me that way - no one can.”
― Nic Sheff, Tweak: Growing Up On Methamphetamines

“The thing is, though, every time I think I’m just gonna give up—that I can’t possibly do it, that I’m just going to curl up alone somewhere and waste away, well, I always keep trying. I mean, for some reason I manage to make it through another day and then another day after that.”
― Nic Sheff, Tweak: Growing Up On Methamphetamines

“I want to stay hidden in this apartment forever. I want to be kept like a house cat.”
― Nic Sheff, We All Fall Down: Living with Addiction

“Maybe having schizophrenia is my big fuck-you to the status quo. Only, I guess at this point, being normal and well-adjusted would be, like, the biggest fuck-you of them all. So I guess I'll just try to shoot for that, if I can.”
― Nic Sheff, Schizo

“Now is now. There is nothing but now... This, right here, is all there is.”
― Nic Sheff, Tweak: Growing Up On Methamphetamines

“There's something about outward appearances that has always been important to me. I always thought I was so ugly. I mean, I really did. I remember... as a little kid and just staring into the mirror for hours. It was like, if I looked long enough, maybe I'd finally be handsome. It never worked. I just got uglier and uglier. Nothing about me ever seemed good enough. And there was this sadness inside me - this hopelessness. Focusing on my physical appearance was at least easier than trying to address the internal shit. I could control the external - at least, to a point. I could buy different clothes, or cut my hair, or whatever. The pit opening up inside me was too frightening to even look at.”
― Nic Sheff, Tweak: Growing Up On Methamphetamines

“It's like there are seven candles lit in my stomach. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Seven candles burning and smoking - lit - seven flames of doubt, fear, sorrow, pain, waste, hopelessness, despair. They turn my insides black with soot and ash. ”
― Nic Sheff

“I guess I just struggle with belonging to any organization. I always feel like I should be able to do it on my own. My ego tells me I'm better than all this... I want to rebel against it, though of course, I don't really have any options.”
― Nic Sheff, Tweak: Growing Up On Methamphetamines