I have watched patients stand and gaze longingly toward the city they in all likelihood will never enter again. It means liberty and life; it seems so near, and yet heaven is not further from hell

I have never written a word that did not come from my heart. I never shall.

I took upon myself to enact the part of a poor, unfortunate crazy girl, and felt it my duty not to shirk any of the disagreeable results that should follow.

On the wagon sped, and I, as well as my comrades, gave a despairing farewell glance at freedom as we came in sight of the long stone buildings.

ENERGY RIGHTLY APPLIED CAN ACCOMPLISH ANYTHING.

I always made a point of telling the doctors I was sane, and asking to be released, but the more I endeavored to assure them of my sanity, the more they doubted it

'VERY WELL,' I SAID ANGRILY, 'START THE MAN, AND I'LL START THE SAME DAY FOR SOME OTHER NEWSPAPER AND BEAT HIM.'

The insane asylum on Blackwell’s Island is a human rat-trap. It is easy to get in, but once there it is impossible to get out.

COULD I PASS A WEEK IN THE INSANE WARD AT BLACKWELL'S ISLAND? I SAID I COULD AND I WOULD. AND I DID.

I always had a desire to know asylum life more thoroughly - a desire to be convinced that the most helpless of God's creatures, the insane, were cared for kindly and properly.

It is only after one is in trouble that one realizes how little sympathy and kindness there are in the world.

To do exactly as your neighbors do is the only sensible rule.

We're all working together that's the secret.

Any authentic work of art must start an argument between the artist and his audience.

Whatever luck I had, I made. I was never a natural athlete, but I paid my dues in sweat and concentration and took the time necessary to learn karate and become world champion.

Mind, even more deadly to empires than to individuals, erodes them, compromises their solidity.

I would, however, question the implication that there is some novelty in this beyond modalities [of Mikhail Bakunin], which naturally change as institutions change and develop.

Feelings form part of a world in which time, space and frontiers do not exist.

If you kiss a woman's mind, her body will follow.

I'm more cautious about what I write.

Once lucky, twice confident, and thrice dead.