Top 40 Nellie Bly Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “I have never written a word that did not come from my heart. I never shall.”

— Nellie Bly

2. “I was too impatient to work at the usual duties assigned women on newspapers.”

— Nellie Bly

3. “The insane asylum on Blackwell’s Island is a human rat-trap. It is easy to get in, but once there it is impossible to get out.”

— Nellie Bly

4. “It is only after one is in trouble that one realizes how little sympathy and kindness there are in the world.”

— Nellie Bly

5. “While I live I hope.”

— Nellie Bly

6. “Never having failed, I could not picture what failure meant.”

— Nellie Bly

7. “Nonsense! If you want to do it, you can do it. The question is, do you want to do it?”

— Nellie Bly

8. “I always had a desire to know asylum life more thoroughly – a desire to be convinced that the most helpless of God’s creatures, the insane, were cared for kindly and properly.”

— Nellie Bly

9. “A stick beats more ugliness into a person than it ever beats out.”

— Nellie Bly

10. “I always made a point of telling the doctors I was sane, and asking to be released, but the more I endeavored to assure them of my sanity, the more they doubted it.”

— Nellie Bly

11. “I had looked forward so eagerly to leaving the horrible place, yet when my release came and I knew that God’s sunlight was to be free for me again, there was a certain pain in leaving.”

— Nellie Bly

12. “I had never been near insane persons before in my life, and had not the faintest idea of what their actions were like.”

— Nellie Bly

13. “I would like the expert physicians who are condemning me for my action, which has proven their ability, to take a perfectly sane and healthy woman, shut her up and make her sit from 6 A. M. until 8 P. M. on straight-back benches, do not allow her to talk or move during these hours, give her no reading and let her know nothing of the world or its doings, give her bad food and harsh treatment, and see how long it will take to make her insane. Two months would make her a mental and physical wreck.”

— Nellie Bly

14. “I’ve always had the feeling that nothing is impossible is one applies a certain amount of energy in the right direction. If you want to do it, you can do it.”

— Nellie Bly

15. “That was the greatest night of my existence. For a few hours I stood face to face with “self!” I.”

— Nellie Bly

16. “The turned-down pages of my life were turned up, and the past was present.”

— Nellie Bly

17. “I have watched patients stand and gaze longingly toward the city they in all likelihood will never enter again. It means liberty and life; it seems so near, and yet heaven is not further from hell.”

— Nellie Bly

18. “How can a doctor judge a woman’s sanity by merely bidding her good morning and refusing to hear her pleas for release? Even the sick ones know it is useless to say anything, for the answer will be that it is their imagination.”

— Nellie Bly

19. “I took upon myself to enact the part of a poor, unfortunate crazy girl, and felt it my duty not to shirk any of the disagreeable results that should follow.”

— Nellie Bly

20. “What is this place?” I asked of the man, who had his fingers sunk into the flesh of my arm. “Blackwell’s Island, an insane place, where you’ll never get out of”.”

— Nellie Bly

21. “In our short walks we passed the kitchen where food was prepared for the nurses and doctors. There we got glimpses of melons and grapes and all kinds of fruits, beautiful white bread and nice meats, and the hungry feeling would be increased tenfold.”

— Nellie Bly

22. “They were being driven to a prison, through no fault of their own, in all probability for life. In comparison, how much easier it would be to walk to the gallows than to this tomb of living horrors!”

— Nellie Bly

23. “But here let me say one thing: From the moment I entered the insane ward on the Island, I made no attempt to keep up the assumed role of insanity.”

— Nellie Bly

24. “I felt sure now that no doctor could tell whether people were insane or not, so long as the case was not violent. Later.”

— Nellie Bly

25. “People in the world can never imagine the length of days to those in asylums. They seemed never ending, and we welcomed any event that might give us something to think about as well as talk of.”

— Nellie Bly

26. “I had, toward the last, been shut off from all visitors, and so when the lawyer, Peter A. Hendricks, came and told me that friends of mine were willing to take charge of me if I would rather be with them than in the asylum, I was only too glad to give my consent.”

— Nellie Bly

27. “Even that was all consumed after two days, and the patients had to try to choke down fresh fish, just boiled in water, without salt, pepper or butter; mutton, beef, and potatoes without the faintest seasoning.”

— Nellie Bly

28. “Quando si vivono certe esperienze e ci si scontra con problemi mai concepiti, si realizza quanto il mondo pecchi in simpatia e gentilezza.”

— Nellie Bly

29. “I shuddered to think how completely the insane were in the power of their keepers, and how one could weep and plead for release, and all of no avail, if the keepers were so minded.”

— Nellie Bly

30. “But here was a woman taken without her own consent from the free world to an asylum and there given no chance to prove her sanity. Confined most probably for life behind asylum bars, without even being told in her language the why and wherefore. Compare this with a criminal, who is given every chance to prove his innocence. Who would not rather be a murderer and take the chance for life than be declared insane, without hope of escape?”

— Nellie Bly

31. “To have a good brain the stomach must be cared for.”

— Nellie Bly

32. “Compare this with a criminal, who is given every chance to prove his innocence. Who would not rather be a murderer and take the chance for life than be declared insane, without hope of escape?”

— Nellie Bly

33. “I always liked fog, it lends such a soft, beautifying light to things that otherwise in the broad glare of day would be rude and commonplace.”

— Nellie Bly

34. “I said I believed I could. I had some faith in my own ability as an actress and thought I could assume insanity long enough to accomplish any mission intrusted to me. Could I pass a week in the insane ward at Blackwell’s Island? I said I could and I would. And I did.”

— Nellie Bly

35. “The attendants seemed to find amusement and pleasure in exciting the violent patients to do their worst.”

— Nellie Bly

36. “As I passed a low pavilion, where a crowd of helpless lunatics were confined, I read a motto on the wall, “While I live I hope”. The absurdity of it struck me forcibly. I would have liked to put above the gates that open to the asylum, “He who enters here leaveth hope behind”.”

— Nellie Bly

37. “Another thing quite as noticeable, I had more men try to get up a flirtation with me while I was a box-factory girl than I ever had before. The girls were nice in their manners and as polite as ones reared at home. They never forgot to thank one another for the slightest service, and there was quite a little air of “good form” in many of their actions. I have seen many worse girls in much higher positions than the white slaves of New York.”

— Nellie Bly

38. “But here let me say one thing: From the moment, I entered the insane ward on the Island, I made no attempt to keep up the assumed role of insanity. I talked and acted just as I do in ordinary life. Yet strange to say, the more sanely I talked and acted the crazier I was thought to be by all except one physician, whose kindness and gentle ways I shall not soon forget.”

— Nellie Bly

39. “A pretty young Hebrew woman spoke so little English I could not get her story except as told by the nurses. They said her name is Sarah Fishbaum, and that her husband put her in the asylum because she had a fondness for other men than himself.”

— Nellie Bly

40. “Dress is a great weapon in the hands of a woman if rightly applied. It is a weapon men lack, so women should make the most of it.”

— Nellie Bly

41. “After this, I began to have a smaller regard for the ability of doctors than I ever had before, and a greater one for myself. I felt sure now that no doctor could tell whether people were insane or not, so long as the case was not violent.”

— Nellie Bly