Quotes

[on her experience as a mental patient] Never console yourself into believing that the terror has passed, for it looms as large and evil today as it did in the despicable era of Bedlam. But I must relate the horrors as I recall them, in the hope that some force for mankind might be moved to relieve forever the unfortunate creatures who are still imprisoned in the back wards of decaying institutions.

[on her reaction to her high school essay "God Dies"] It was pretty sad, because for the first time, I found how stupid people could be. It sort of made me feel alone in the world. The more people pointed at me in scorn, the more stubborn I got, and when they began calling me the Bad Girl of West High School, I tried to live up to it.

[on Hollywood] It's a nuthouse. The other day, a man phoned and wanted me to endorse a certain brand of cigarettes. I had nothing against them and in fact will smoke them or anything else that comes along, but I didn't know why he was bothering me. I though maybe if I was nice, they'd give me a carton and a thank offering, so I rather tentatively broached the matter of remuneration. What was the endorsement worth, I asked, and he said three thousand dollars. What are you going to do in an atmosphere like that?

What they had me doing first was autographing copies of "Come and Get It" at the Bon Marche, where I had been fired a couple of years back. That was bad enough but think of me autographing a book written by somebody else. That took crust but it didn't turn out so badly because when I got to the store, about twenty people finally strolled in and look at me from a distance and kept their buying firmly in control. What the Goldwyn people had forgotten was that up that way I'm still remembered as the freak from West Seattle High.

I wondered a little why God was such a useless thing. It seemed a waste of time to have him. After that he became less and less, until he was...nothingness.