I shuddered to think how completely the insane were in the power of their keepers, and how one could weep and plead for release, and all of no avail, if the keepers were so minded.

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.

The Providence granted me with the ability to think, and thinking unveiled to me that, sadly, there was no providence.

The miracle of birth is divine.

I think people who sample are cheating. It is like people who do collages. Use all of your own stuff.

If we had to say what writing is, we would have to define it essentially as an act of courage.

The bravest man feels an anxiety 'circa praecordia' as he enters the battle; but he dreads disgrace yet more.

Education is the ticket to success

Books don't live and die by awards. You don't listen to an Hector Lavoe album because it won some awards.

Mother is a synonym for abandonment and death. Comparing this synonym to water, it is like poured-out water. I call it mother, the identity that I cannot identify.

There is no significant idea which cannot be explained to an intelligent twelve year old boy in fifteen minutes.

The 21st century will not be about the battle between capitalism and socialism but between the forces of progress and the forces of conservatism.