Top 35 Nic Sheff Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “We only have this one moment: NOW.”

— Nic Sheff

2. “As long as you look for someone else to validate who you are by seeking their approval, you are setting yourself up for disaster. You have to be whole and complete in yourself. No one can give you that. You have to know who you are – what others say is irrelevant.”

— Nic Sheff

3. “It’s like if the music is loud enough I won’t be able to listen to my own thoughts.”

— Nic Sheff

4. “Trying is terrifying because I know I will just fail. But I do want things to be different. I do... I am so afraid. I’m afraid to hope again.”

— Nic Sheff

5. “Isn’t that the greatest gift in the world-just not to care?”

— Nic Sheff

6. “It was like being in a car with the gas pedal slammed down to the floor and nothing to do but hold on and pretend to have some semblance of control. But control was something I’d lost a long time ago.”

— Nic Sheff

7. “I feel just, you know, defeated.”

— Nic Sheff

8. “They say suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. he problem with being humas isn’t really so temporary.”

— Nic Sheff

9. “Still, children seem like empty vessels who pick up on everything and are so affected by their surroundings. I mean, that’s what they tell me in therapy and it seems to be true. Stuff I don’t consciously remember affects my behavior every day. I see that now.”

— Nic Sheff

10. “Still, for all the therapy I had, none of it ever really fixed that feeling of torn-apartness inside of me. I learned how to express myself, that was all. And, for whatever reason, identifying the root cause of my problem – like fear of abandonment or something – didn’t change a goddamn thing. I could see quite clearly why I acted a certain way, but that wouldn’t make me any different. I sought out craziness. I was attracted to it. No therapy could take that away.”

— Nic Sheff

11. “Isn’t that the greatest gift in the world – just not to care? I feel so grateful for it.”

— Nic Sheff

12. “I felt like everyone else had gotten this instruction manual that explained life to them, but somehow I’d just missed it.”

— Nic Sheff

13. “I need everyone to like me and I just burn out bending over backward to make that happen. Having people be mad at me is my worst fear. I can’t stand it. There is this crazy fear I have of being rejected by anyone – even people I don’t really care about. It’s always better to leave them first, cut all ties, and disappear. They can’t hurt me that way – no one can.”

— Nic Sheff

14. “The thing is, though, every time I think I’m just gonna give up – that I can’t possibly do it, that I’m just going to curl up alone somewhere and waste away, well, I always keep trying. I mean, for some reason I manage to make it through another day and then another day after that.”

— Nic Sheff

15. “For ninety minutes, I was transported into another life, another reality, another character. Basically, it let me be someone that I wasn’t. It allowed me to travel, to be a part of different cultures, different world views, different societies. Plus there are all the elements of movies: music, visuals, writing, and acting. In some ways it is the perfect art form. It is the culmination of all mediums.”

— Nic Sheff

16. “It’s like there are seven candles lit in my stomach. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Seven candles burning and smoking – lit – seven flames of doubt, fear, sorrow, pain, waste, hopelessness, despair. They turn my insides black with soot and ash.”

— Nic Sheff

17. “There is this crazy fear I have of being rejected by anyone – even people I don’t really care about. It’s always better to leave them first, cut all ties, and disappear. They can’t hurt me that way – no one can.”

— Nic Sheff

18. “I guess I just struggle with belonging to any organization. I always feel like I should be able to do it on my own. My ego tells me I’m better than all this... I want to rebel against it, though of course, I don’t really have any options.”

— Nic Sheff

19. “Again, fix the outsides and maybe my insides won’t be such a dark place.”

— Nic Sheff

20. “It seems like there is something about sharing your insides with the world that gives other people strength and hope and helps them not to feel so alone.”

— Nic Sheff

21. “And though I have done many shameful things, I am not ashamed of who I am. I am not ashamed of who I am because I know who I am. I have tried to rip myself open and expose everything inside – accepting my weaknesses and strengths – not trying to be anyone else. ‘Cause that never works, does it? So my challenge is to be authentic.”

— Nic Sheff

22. “Now is now... There is nothing but now and I try to hold on to that. The past is gone, the future hasn’t happened yet. This, right here, is all there is.”

— Nic Sheff

23. “In a way it’s like too serene or whatever – too empty. I feel that familiar feeling of being a dark smudge on this otherwise pristine white canvas. There’s just no way to blend in out here.”

— Nic Sheff

24. “You have got to get creative if you want anyone to notice your goddamn teenage angst.”

— Nic Sheff

25. “The sun’s still keeping the sky somewhat colored, even though it’s already gone down beyond the horizon. There are strips of patterned pinks and oranges layered up like sideways colored bars. A Los Angeles sunset, made beautiful by a screen of haze, pollution, and trash. It says a lot about this city. It says a lot about the people who live here.”

— Nic Sheff

26. “They don’t have to struggle like I do – or maybe that’s just me comparing my goddamn insides to everyone else’s outsides.”

— Nic Sheff

27. “The only thing that ever really gives us any genuine satisfaction is caring for other people. It doesn’t matter how popular we are or anything. The only thing that actually makes life more fulfilling is our love for others... And the results speak for themselves.”

— Nic Sheff

28. “Now is now. There is nothing but now... This, right here, is all there is.”

— Nic Sheff

29. “It’s like the world’s gravitational pull has just lessened tenfold. Everything trapped in me, rushing in and out like the ocean against a jetty – pounding over and over, trying to crush the breaker wall with each rhythmic explosion – has finally been taken away. I cry for that and I’m not sure what else.”

— Nic Sheff

30. “Hey, man, helping you is how I stay alive. Never forget that.”

— Nic Sheff

31. “And, for whatever reason, identifying the root cause of my problem – like fear of abandonment or something – didn’t change a goddamn thing. I could see quite clearly why I acted a certain way, but that wouldn’t make me any different. I sought out craziness. I was attracted to it. No therapy could take that away.”

— Nic Sheff

32. “Asking for money is a proclamation of your own unfitness for survival. It’s saying, ‘I am the weak one of the herd.”

— Nic Sheff

33. “It’s the outside world that’s the prison. The outside world of jobs and cars and cell phones and apartments and grocery stores. Appropriate clothing, plans for a Saturday night, loneliness.”

— Nic Sheff

34. “The world’s turning a whole lot faster than it should be.”

— Nic Sheff

35. “Somehow that always seemed to happen – we addicts can always find one another. There must be some strange addict radar or something.”

— Nic Sheff