Beth > Beth's Quotes

“One of the things that baffles me (and there are quite a few) is how there can be so much lingering stigma with regards to mental illness, specifically bipolar disorder. In my opinion, living with manic depression takes a tremendous amount of balls. Not unlike a tour of Afghanistan (though the bombs and bullets, in this case, come from the inside). At times, being bipolar can be an all-consuming challenge, requiring a lot of stamina and even more courage, so if you're living with this illness and functioning at all, it's something to be proud of, not ashamed of.
They should issue medals along with the steady stream of medication.”
― Carrie Fisher, Wishful Drinking

“Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“I feel I'm very sane about how crazy I am.”
― Carrie Fisher, Wishful Drinking

“There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book.
Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“If my life wasn’t funny it would just be true, and that is unacceptable.”
― Carrie Fisher, Wishful Drinking

“I hate to hear you talk about all women as if they were fine ladies instead of rational creatures. None of us want to be in calm waters all our lives.”
― Jane Austen, Persuasion

“In my opinion, a problem derails your life and an inconvenience is not being able to get a nice seat on the un-derailed train.”
― Carrie Fisher, Wishful Drinking

“You know what's funny about death? I mean other than absolutely nothing at all? You'd think we could remember finding out we weren't immortal. Sometimes I see children sobbing airports and I think, "Aww. They've just been told.”
― Carrie Fisher, Wishful Drinking

“Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official, save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country. It is patriotic to support him insofar as he efficiently serves the country. It is unpatriotic not to oppose him to the exact extent that by inefficiency or otherwise he fails in his duty to stand by the country. In either event, it is unpatriotic not to tell the truth, whether about the president or anyone else.”
― Theodore Roosevelt

“Vera incessu patuit dea.
(The goddess indubitable was revealed in her step.)”
― Virgil, The Aeneid

“Having waited my entire life to get an award for something, anything...I now get awards all the time for being mentally ill. It’s better than being bad at being insane, right? How tragic would it be to be runner-up for Bipolar Woman of the Year?”
― Carrie Fisher, Wishful Drinking

“I heard someone say once that many of us only seem able to find heaven by backing away from hell. And while the place that I’ve arrived at in my life may not precisely be everyone’s idea of heavenly, I could swear sometimes — I hear angels sing.”
― Carrie Fisher, Wishful Drinking

“Let’'s say something happens, and from a certain slant maybe it'’s tragic, even a little bit shocking. Then time passes and you go to the funny slant, and now that very same thing can no longer do you any harm.”
― Carrie Fisher, Wishful Drinking

“no matter how I go, I want it reported that I drowned in moonlight, strangled by my own bra.”
― Carrie Fisher, Wishful Drinking: Carrie Fisher

“Some things are more precious because they don't last long.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“I want someone to love and treasure and overwhelm.”
― Carrie Fisher, Wishful Drinking

“Now this is a delusion, but it’s my delusion and I’m sticking with it. It’s sort of like: I have problems but problems don’t have me.”
― Carrie Fisher, Wishful Drinking

“Mike Nichols used to say we were two flowers, no gardener. No one was minding the relationship.”
― Carrie Fisher, Wishful Drinking

“I make them bald, I turn them gay, my work is done!”
― Carrie Fisher, Wishful Drinking

“Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“I thought I would inaugurate a Bipolar Pride Day. You know, with floats and parades and stuff! On the floats we would get the depressives, and they wouldn’t even have to leave their beds - we’d just roll their beds out of their houses, and they could continue staring off miserably into space. And then for the manics, we’d have the manic marching band, with manics laughing and talking and shopping and fucking and making bad judgment calls.”
― Carrie Fisher, Wishful Drinking

“...about a year after that, I was invited to go to a mental hospital. And, you know, you don't want to be rude, so you go.”
― Carrie Fisher, Wishful Drinking

“Everything in the world is about sex except sex. Sex is about power.”
― Oscar Wilde

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”
― Oscar Wilde

“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”
― Oscar Wilde

“To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.”
― Yann Martel, Life of Pi

“If Christ spent an anguished night in prayer, if He burst out from the Cross, 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?' then surely we are also permitted doubt. But we must move on. To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.”
― Yann Martel, Life of Pi

“It was my first clue that atheists are my brothers and sisters of a different faith. Like me, they go as far as the legs of reason will carry them - and then they leap. I'll be honest about it. It is not atheists who get stuck in my craw, but agnostics. Doubt is useful for awhile. We must all pass through the garden of Gethsemane. If Christ played with doubt, so must we. If Christ spent an anguished night in prayer, if He burst out from the Cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" then surely we are also permitted doubt. But we must move on. To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.”
― Yann Martel, Life of Pi

“name was Tom Smith and he had performed so many marriages he could recite the service in his sleep. Sometimes he did and his wife would lie in bed and listen to him, the whole service through, comforted that someone could know the words of love by heart.”
― Alice Hoffman, Skylight Confessions

“No one knows you like a person with whom you've shared a childhood. No one will ever understand you in quite the same way.”
― Alice Hoffman, Practical Magic