Top 150 Ned Vizzini Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Dreams are only dreams until you wake up and make them real.”

— Ned Vizzini

Featured in: Never Give Up Quotes, Dreaming Big Quotes, Fulfillment Quotes, Desire Quotes

2. “I didn’t want to wake up. I was having a much better time asleep. And that’s really sad. It was almost like a reverse nightmare, like when you wake up from a nightmare you’re so relieved. I woke up into a nightmare.”

— Ned Vizzini

3. “I feel dead, wasted, awful, broken and useless. It’s not the kind of feeling you forget.”

— Ned Vizzini

4. “I’m not afraid of dying, I’m afraid of living.”

— Ned Vizzini

5. “I can’t eat and I can’t sleep. I’m not doing well in terms of being a functional human, you know?”

— Ned Vizzini

6. “I don’t know how I can be so ambitious and so lazy at the same time.”

— Ned Vizzini

7. “Life’s not about feeling better, it’s about getting the job done.”

— Ned Vizzini

8. “So why am I depressed? That’s the million-dollar question, baby, the Tootsie Roll question; not even the owl knows the answer to that one. I don’t know either. All I know is the chronology.”

— Ned Vizzini

9. “I didn’t want to wake up. I was having a much better time asleep. And that’s really sad.”

— Ned Vizzini

10. “I wanted to tell people, “My depression is acting up today” as an excuse for not seeing them, but I never managed to pull it off.”

— Ned Vizzini

11. “Sometimes I just think depression’s one way of coping with the world. Like, some people get drunk, some people do drugs, some people get depressed. Because there’s so much stuff out there that you have to do something to deal with it.”

— Ned Vizzini

12. “It’s tough to get out of bed; I know that myself. You can lie there for an hour and a half without thinking anything, just worrying about what the day holds and knowing that you won’t be able to deal with it.”

— Ned Vizzini

13. “I don’t owe people anything, and I don’t have to talk to them any more than I feel I need to.”

— Ned Vizzini

14. “And when you say the truth you get stronger.”

— Ned Vizzini

15. “People are screwed up in this world. I’d rather be with someone screwed up and open about it than somebody perfect and ready to explode.”

— Ned Vizzini

16. “Life is a nightmare.”

— Ned Vizzini

17. “I wasn’t gifted. Mom was wrong. I was just smart and I worked hard. I had fooled myself into thinking that was something important to the rest of the world. Other people were complicit in this ruse. Nobody had told me I was common.”

— Ned Vizzini

18. “If you can’t get out of bed for long enough, people come and take your bed away.”

— Ned Vizzini

19. “That made me happy. That was my Anchor.”

— Ned Vizzini

20. “That’s what gets me through the day. Knowing that I could do it. That I’m strong enough to do it and I can get it done.”

— Ned Vizzini

21. “I work. And I think about work, and I freak out about work, and I think about how much I think about work, and I freak out about how much I think about how much I think about work, and I think about how freaked out I get about how much I think about how much I think about work.”

— Ned Vizzini

22. “I’m jealous of her. Can you be jealous of your mom for being able to handle things? I couldn’t take a day off, take a dog to the vet, and cook dinner. That’s like three times too much stuff for me to get done in one day. How am I ever going to have my own house?”

— Ned Vizzini

23. “Depression starts slow.”

— Ned Vizzini

24. “I lie there thinking about how everything I’ve done is a failure, death and failure, and there’s no hope for me except being homeless, because I’m never going to be able to hold a job because everyone else is so much smarter.”

— Ned Vizzini

25. “That’s the number one thing I hear about humans. You have all these choices, so you’re confused all the time, and you think so much that you’re never happy.”

— Ned Vizzini

26. “I like how you don’t hide your problems like everyone else, and I don’t have to hide mine when I’m around you.”

— Ned Vizzini

27. “If there is a next life, I hope it’s in the past; I don’t think the future will be any more handleable. I think it’s a little harsh how the END button is red.”

— Ned Vizzini

28. “We look into each other’s eyes as we shake. His are still full of death and horror, but in them I see my face reflected, and inside my tiny eyes inside his, I think I see some hope.”

— Ned Vizzini

29. “See, when you mess something up, you learn for the next time. It’s when people compliment you that you’re in trouble. That means they expect you to keep it up.”

— Ned Vizzini

30. “I had fooled myself into thinking that I was something important to the rest of the world.”

— Ned Vizzini

31. “Some of the most profound truths about us are things that we stop saying in the middle.”

— Ned Vizzini

32. “Life can’t be cured, but it can be managed.”

— Ned Vizzini

33. “A person’s relationship with food is one of their most important relationships.”

— Ned Vizzini

34. “We’re all animals, high school is animals, but some of us are more animal than others. Like in ‘Animal Farm,’ which I read, all animals are created equal, but some are more equal than others? Here in the real world, all equals are created animal, but some are more animal than others.”

— Ned Vizzini

35. “I’m done with those; regrets are an excuse for people who have failed.”

— Ned Vizzini

36. “See, because being Cool is obviously the most important thing on earth. It’s more important than getting a job, or having a girlfriend, or political power, or money, because all those things are predicated by Coolness.”

— Ned Vizzini

37. “I’m smart but not enough – just smart enough to have problems.”

— Ned Vizzini

38. “The Shift is coming. The Shift has to be coming. Because if you keep living like this you’ll die.”

— Ned Vizzini

39. “I had hurt her feelings, I found out later; I didn’t know I had that power.”

— Ned Vizzini

40. “Some days I woke up and got out of bed and brushed my teeth like any normal human being; some days I woke up and laid in bed and looked at the ceiling and wondered what the hell the point was of getting out of bed and brushing my teeth like any normal human being.”

— Ned Vizzini

41. “I owe her everything and I love her and I tell her these days, although every time I say it, it gets a little diluted. I think you run out of I love yous.”

— Ned Vizzini

42. “I should be a success and I’m not and other people- younger people- are. Younger people than me are on TV and getting their lives in order. I’m still a nobody. When am I going to not be a nobody?”

— Ned Vizzini

43. “That’s all I can do. I’ll keep at it and hope it gets better.”

— Ned Vizzini

44. “I’m young, but I’m already screwing up my life. I’m smart but not enough – just smart enough to have problems.”

— Ned Vizzini

45. “And I could have died right then. And considering how things went, I really should have.”

— Ned Vizzini

46. “I was already obsessed. The test had offended me by giving me questions I couldn’t answer. I intended to kill it.”

— Ned Vizzini

47. “I’m still a nobody, when am I not going to be a nobody?”

— Ned Vizzini

48. “I waste at least an hour every day lying in bed. Then I waste time pacing. I waste time thinking. I waste time being quiet and not saying anything because I’m afraid I’ll stutter.”

— Ned Vizzini

49. “My family shouldn’t have to put up with me. They’re good people, solid, happy. Sometimes when I’m with them I think I’m on television.”

— Ned Vizzini

50. “So now live for real, Craig. Live. Live. Live. Live.”

— Ned Vizzini