Ilsa J. Bick

...she said all writers were prima donnas, drunks, social misfits, pompous, or depressed. Brilliant, maybe, but completely crazy.

..... desire is so much sweeter when you cant have it.

There are those individuals who die for a cause, and we say they have made the ultimate sacrifice. We call them martyrs, and we never_doubt their sincerity.Yet many others search their entire lives for something__r someone__orth dying for and this is very different. These are the lonely and the desperate, fearful that their lives have no meaning. They yearn for the bullet, if only someone else will pull the trigger.

Tell yourself you__e dead, the way Matt does, so the past can__ hurt you.

You want to brawl. You want to fight. Fighting tricks you into believing you can change the past, even when the past is dead and gone and all of it ashes.

What you couldn't see and only imagined was always scarier than what was real.

Everybody breaks sooner or later, Bob. Anyone can drown. Sometimes you see it. Most often, youdon__ because the body protects and the skin hides, so drowning doesn__ look like drowning and somepeople scar so nicely. Take it from an expert.

My English teacher said that a writer is the worst judge of his own work.

They call it the drowning instinct. It's when drowning doesn't look like drowning. (pg. 241)

You really didn't appreciate how thick, how powerful water was until you had to fight it.

Follow your heart. Just don't get lost.

Honestly, Bob: how do you carve a scream?

As a doc, though, I've seen what happens when people are under a lot of stress. Doesn't always bring out their best. When people are scared, they get angry. They'll do things they never thought they would. They'll bargain and compromise in order to survive; they'll chase after miracle cures and believe just about anything so long as it gives them hope. When hope fails, then watch out. Some people get brutal. They'll turn on each other; they'll become their own worst enemies.

No one can help but stare at the monster, because horror is a cousin to awe.