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My family had a lot of characteristics—achievements, ambitions, talents, expectations—that all seemed to be recessive in me.

— Susanna Kaysen Girl, Interrupted (1994)

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Ambition

More quotes by Susanna Kaysen

When women are angry at men, they call them heartless. When men are angry at women, they call them crazy.

As far as I could see, life demanded skills I didn’t have.

Girl, Interrupted (1994)

But most people pass over incrementally, making a series of perforations in the membrane between here and there until an opening exists. And who can resist an opening?

Girl, Interrupted (1994)

Lunatics are similar to designated hitters. Often an entire family is crazy, but since an entire family can't go into the hospital, one person is designated as crazy and goes inside.

Girl, Interrupted (1994)

Another odd feature of the parallel universe is that although it is invisible from this side, once you are in it you can easily see the world you came from.

Girl, Interrupted (1994)

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Men accept servility in order to acquire wealth; as if they could acquire anything of their own when they cannot even assert that they belong to themselves.

Étienne de La Boétie Discourse on Voluntary Servitude (1548)

To rank the effort above the prize may be called love.

Confucius

The poor, by thinking unceasingly of money, reach the point of losing the spiritual advantages of non-possession, thereby sinking as low as the rich.

Emil Cioran The Trouble With Being Born (1973)

A wise man is cured of ambition by ambition itself; his aim is so exalted that riches, office, fortune, and favor cannot satisfy him.

Jean de La Bruyère Les Caractères (1688)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Susanna Kaysen (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.