“He could not stand. It was notThat he could not thrive, he was bornWith everything but the will –That can be deformed, just like a limb.Death was more interesting to him.Life could not get his attention.”

“Suicide sometimes proceeds from cowardice, but not always; for cowardice sometimes prevents it; since as many live because they are afraid to die, as die because they are afraid to live”

“When you were a child, you used to run to me for protection. Now, in moments of weakness, I want to hide my head on your knees; I want you to be strong and wise; I want you to protect and defend me. I’m not always strong in spirit, Vitya – I can be weak too. I often think about suicide, but something holds me back – some weakness, or strength, or irrational hope.”

“Mind led bodyto the edge of the precipice.They stared in desireat the naked abyss.If you love me, said mind,take that step into silence.If you love me, said body,turn and exist.”

“Any way I slice reality it comes out poorly, and I feel an urge to not exist, something I have never felt before; and now here it comes with conviction, almost panic. I mentally bless and exonerate anyone who has kicked a chair out from beneath her or swallowed opium in large chunks. My mind has met their environment, here in the void. I understand perfectly.”

“He killed himself for wanting to live.”

“People are dying because they are trying to prove they are strong. Being strong doesn’t mean you have to fight everything alone. It doesn’t mean you have to go through what you are going through alone . It doesn’t mean you have to bundle, all the pain, problems and suffering , but being STRONG it means asking help & advice when you have to. Asking for guidance & directions when needed. Choosing to speak to someone than holding everything inside. Speak to someone on what you are going through .It takes a courage and that is being strong when you choose to speak out .”

“He could only consider me as the living corpse of a would-be suicide, a person dead to shame, an idiot ghost.”

“Hanged”I hung myself today. Hanged? Whatever,the point is I hanged myself today and I’m stillhanging.I feel fine. Just bored. I keep hoping thatsomeone will come home and cut me downbut then I keep remembering that if I knewsomeone like that I wouldn’t be up here. Bitironic, right? Or is that not ironic? I readsomewhere that, like, anything funny is,in some way, ironic. But I don’t know if it’sfunny or not. I don’t think my brain owns“funny”, you know?I feel taller. I like that.I’ve never been away from my shadow forthis long. It had always clung to my feet,parting momentarily for a quick dive intothe swimming pool. But never for fivehours. I like it. There’s three feet of spacebetween my two and the floor.I wanted something this morning. I may bestuck. But at least I’m three feet closer to it.”

“He said you were the only one who was bitter about S.’s suicide and the only one who really forgave him for it. The rest of us, he said, were outwardly unbitter and inwardly unforgiving. ”

“How unhappy does one have to be before living seems worse than dying?”

“We throw our parties; we abandon our families to live alone in Canada; we struggle to write books that do not change the world, despite our gifts and our unstinting efforts, our most extravagant hopes. We live our lives, do whatever we do, and then we sleep. It’s as simple and ordinary as that. A few jump out windows, or drown themselves, or take pills; more die by accident; and most of us are slowly devoured by some disease, or, if we’re very fortunate, by time itself. There’s just this for consolation: an hour here or there when our lives seem, against all odds and expectations, to burst open and give us everything we’ve ever imagined, though everyone but children (and perhaps even they) know these hours will inevitably be followed by others, far darker and more difficult. Still, we cherish the city, the morning; we hope, more than anything, for more. Heaven only knows why we love it so…”

“Put a gun to my head and paint the wall with my brains.”

“God surely did not create us, and cause us to live, with the sole end of wishing always to die. I believe, in my heart, we were intended to prize life and enjoy it, so long as we retain it. Existence never was originally meant to be that useless, blank, pale, slow-trailing thing it often becomes to many, and is becoming to me, among the rest.”

“And I do. I do wonder, I think about it all the time. What it would be like to kill myself. Because I never really know, I still can’t tell the difference, I’m never quite certain whether or not I’m actually alive. I sit here every single day. Run, I said to myself. Run until your lungs collapse, until the wind whips and snaps at your tattered clothes, until you’re a blur that blends into the background. Run, Juliette, run faster, run until your bones break and your shins split and your muscles atrophy and your heart dies because it was always too big for your chest and it beat too fast for too long and you run.Run run run until you can’t hear their feet behind you. Run until they drop their fists and their shouts dissolve in the air. Run with your eyes open and your mouth shut and dam the river rushing up behind your eyes. Run, Juliette.Run until you drop dead. Make sure your heart stops before they ever reach you. Before they ever touch you.Run, I said.”