Veronika Decides to Die

"Well, let's see. After you decide that I'm depressed, or whatever, you'll put me on meds, right? Well I know hundreds of people on them and they're all doing just fine. Really. I'll go back to work on my new anti-depressants, have dinner with my parents and persuade them I'm back to being the normal one who never gives them any trouble. And one day some guy will ask me to marry him. He'll be nice enough. That'll make my parents very happy. The first year we'll make love all the time, and in the second and third less and less. But just as we're getting sick of each other, I'll get pregnant. Taking care of kids, holding onto jobs, paying mortgages, It'll keep us on an even keel for a while. Then about ten years into it he'll have an affair because I'm too busy and I'm too tired. And I'll find out. I'll threaten to kill him, his mistress, myself. We'll get past it. A few years later he'll have another one. This time I'm just going to pretend that I don't know because somehow kicking up a fuss just doesn't seem worth the trouble this time. And I'll live out the rest of my days sometimes wishing my kids could have the life that I never had. Other times secretly pleased they're turning into repeats of me. I'm fine, really."

"I want to die on my own terms."

"Learn to think as those around you think and you can pass yourself off as anything."

"If everyone realized their dreams, this place would be empty."

"I decided to test the only remedy I've come to have any faith in: Awareness of life."

"Hasn't anyone else noticed that everyone has gone totally insane? Why are we all so afraid to look at things as they really are?"

"I hate your stupid desk. And I hate your ugly ties. And I hate your ridiculous socks. And I hate everyone locked up in this place. And I hate my parents for spending their very last penny to keep me in this zoo. God forbid they should ever, for one moment, live their own lives. Is that what they came here for? To be the fucking same as everybody else? And I hate the jerks in my office who think the money they earn makes them 'the shit'. And more than anything I hate the zombies on the subway who have forgotten all of their dreams or the fact that they ever had any to begin with."

"I wasn't myself last night. Or maybe I really was. Nothing makes any sense anymore."