Memoirs Of My Nervous Illness Quotes

Memoirs of My Nervous Illness,

It was as if single nights had the duration of centuries, so within that time the most profound alterations in the whole of mankind, in the earth itself and the whole solar system could very well have taken place.

Each person in the group said something except for me. My silence became noticed. About halfway through the meeting I started to think, I've got to talk. Today, I've got to talk. Fear racked me so bad that sweat ran down my sides. I thought, After the curly-haired woman stops talking I'll raise my hand. A man with a cocky smile told the curly woman that her story was nothing compared to his, he'd been passed out cold from heroin and God knows what, and I wanted to tell him to quit glorifying hinself. I was just about to say the words, a few faces turned toward me as if they could sense my imminent speech, when a man across the circle interrupted. The opportunity passed; what I wanted to say wouldn't fit now. I tilted on the back two legs of the chair and waited for my desire to speak and be noticed and be part of the group to travel back through my nervous system. Up the synapses condemnation rushed: Why couldn't I spit something out like a normal person?

A fundamental misunderstanding obtained however, which has since run like a red thread through my entire life. It is based upon the fact that, within the order of the World, God did not really understand the living human being and had no need to understand him, because, according to the Order of the World, He dealt only with corpses.

When I sat on a camp stool in the garden in a black coat with a black flap hat I felt like a marble guest who had returned from times long past into a strange world.

My baby sister, Janet, kept us all occupied with her antics. She could climb out of any enclosure and I actually found her on top of a bookcase one day. I gave her the nickname “Sweet Pea” after the character in the Popeye cartoon strip who possessed similar talents. She was a bundle of nervous energy and liked to tear out her pretty blonde hair in bunches, smiling all the while. I think she enjoyed all the attention from all of her supervisors. Thanksgiving was soon upon us, the time when Grandma would take out all her recipes and spices from a large Oriental tin she kept for the holiday seasons. I especially loved her Swedish Spritz Cookies pressed from a cookie press. Grandma took out the cookie sheets and said, “Carol Ann, you be in charge of the nonpareils. Linda, you can sprinkle the red and green sugar on the cookies after I press them out.” “Where did you get this recipe, Grandma?” “In Sweden, actually. I’ll tell you all about it as we bake. After only a three-year stay in Washington, during which Mr. Bliss was assigned to two different positions: first to the Washington, D.C. Conference on the Limitation of Armaments and then as Chairman of the Diplomatic Service Board of Engineers, President Warren Harding finally made Mr. Bliss, a lifelong Republican, the Ambassador to Sweden.