1. People
    2.  › 
  2. Elizabeth Wurtzel
Elizabeth Wurtzel photo

Elizabeth Wurtzel Quotes

Total quotes: 27
“Depression is about as close as you get to somewhere between dead and alive, and it's the worst.”
— Elizabeth Wurtzel, Prozac Nation
Tagged: Depression, dead, alive, H4D-2
“I often wonder if the Founding Fathers sat down in the pub over steins of ale, or at a dining room table over a hardy supper, and said to each other, Let’s start a country.”
— Elizabeth Wurtzel, Creatocracy
Tagged: America, American Exceptionalism, Founding Fathers
“What would the world be without America?
It would be a dull and dinky planet, indeed.”
— Elizabeth Wurtzel, Creatocracy
Tagged: America, American Exceptionalism
“There is no justice in a meritocracy: The talented and the beautiful are rewarded disproportionately. And even the wicked get worse than they deserve.”
— Elizabeth Wurtzel, Creatocracy
Tagged: Meritocracy, talented, Beautiful, Reward, Wicket
“This country has been bound for glory or the ditch, which is really the nature of all popular culture, of the Hollywood blockbuster, of the great American Dream.”
— Elizabeth Wurtzel, Creatocracy
Tagged: American Exceptionalism, American Dream, Hollywood
“Homesick is just a state of mind for me, that I’m always missing someone or some place or something, I’m always trying to get back some imaginary somewhere. My life has been one long longing.”
— Elizabeth Wurtzel, Prozac Nation: Young and Depressed in America
Tagged: Homesickness, Missing, Longing, Loneliness, State of Mind
“Insanity is knowing that what you’re doing is completely idiotic, but still, somehow, you just can’t stop it.”
— Elizabeth Wurtzel, Prozac Nation: Young and Depressed in America
Tagged: Insanity, human action, Human Behavior
“The American flag is the most exquisite and artistic of all the banners of all the nations.”
— Elizabeth Wurtzel, Creatocracy
Tagged: American Flag, Artistic
“This country was always cool. Everything we do here is cooler than everything they do everywhere else, and so it will ever be.”
— Elizabeth Wurtzel, Creatocracy
Tagged: America, American Exceptionalism
“Since this nation came to be, almost every important invention under creation happened here, because America is the coolest invention of all.”
— Elizabeth Wurtzel, Creatocracy
Tagged: America, American Exceptionalism
“If you are chronically down, it is a lifelong fight to keep from sinking.”
— Elizabeth Wurtzel, Prozac Nation
Tagged: Depression, Survival, Suffering
“It’s about how nice it must be to just decide I will not be nice, I am never sorry, I have no regrets: what is before me belongs to me.”
— Elizabeth Wurtzel, Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women
Tagged: Regrets, No Regrets
“Somehow, society convinces us that we are nothing without a man, and simultaneously feeds us subliminal messages that make us feel that no man in his right mind would really want us.”
— Elizabeth Wurtzel, Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women
Tagged: Societal Norms, Break The Norm, Men
“Talent is the ability to make something that is more stunning than human presence.”
— Elizabeth Wurtzel, Creatocracy
Tagged: Magic, Art, Creation
“Copyright has always been the best filter for talent, because if it was good, you knew it because you got paid. That is the best formula. Anything else is noise.”
— Elizabeth Wurtzel, Creatocracy: How the Constitution Invented Hollywood
Tagged: Capitalism, Cultural Elitism vs. Democratic Consumerism, Art and Culture, Art + Commerce, Money/Art, How To Judge Things, Copyright
“Bad girls understand that there is no point in being good and suffering in silence. What good has good ever done?”
— Elizabeth Wurtzel, Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women
Tagged: Bad Girls
“We decide to learn to be the way men want us to be, rather than insisting they change to suit us.”
— Elizabeth Wurtzel, Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women
Tagged: Gender Relations
“The American flag is the most exquisite and artistic of all the banners of all the nations.”
— Elizabeth Wurtzel, Creatocracy: How the Constitution Invented Hollywood
Tagged: First Line of Books, America, The United States, USA, American Flag, Flags, first lines of books
“Maybe I should have been wiser. But the only way I could have was to have been a completely different person.”
— Elizabeth Wurtzel, Elizabeth Wurtzel Confronts Her One-Night Stand of a Life
Tagged: Life, Wisdom, Choices
“Ever since it has been inadvertent brilliance, this country has been one big huge accident, slouching toward perfection.”
— Elizabeth Wurtzel, Creatocracy: How the Constitution Invented Hollywood
Tagged: The United States, America, Beautiful Accidents, Perfectly Psycho America
“That's the thing about depression: A human being can survive almost anything, as long as she sees the end in sight. But depression is so insidious, and it compounds daily, that it's impossible to ever see the end.”
— Elizabeth Wurtzel, Prozac Nation
Tagged: Depression, Survival, humans
“Mental illness is so much more complicated than any pill that any mortal could invent.”
— Elizabeth Wurtzel, Prozac Nation
Tagged: Mental Illness, Depression, Pills, cures
“I have been working out the wrong problem.

Thousands of words on the wrong problem. I have perfected a two-handed backhand to clobber the lob that is coming at me that is: the wrong problem. I have aced the wrong problem.”
— Elizabeth Wurtzel, Neither of My Parents Was Exactly Who I Thought They Were
Tagged: Parents, Family, Fathers, Biology, Dysfunctional, Growth, Acceptance
“That is all I want in life: for this pain to seem purposeful.”
— Elizabeth Wurtzel, Prozac Nation
Tagged: Life, Pain, purpose
“Expression is a miracle. Now try writing it down. Now try making it gorgeous. Now try making it perfect. An idea loses a lot and gains more as it hitchhikes its way through the world. But if it is expressed with the grace of a good cocktail at the end of a long and tiresome day, somebody did something right.”
— Elizabeth Wurtzel, Creatocracy: How the Constitution Invented Hollywood
Tagged: Creative Expression, Making Ideas Real
“The best filter isn’t BuzzFeed, or The Atlantic, or whatever. The best filter is money. That is how you say “I love you.” This is America. This is a capitalist country. We say “I’m sorry” with money. We say “I love you” with money.”
— Elizabeth Wurtzel, Elizabeth Wurtzel: "Nothing's Off The Record"
Tagged: Money, Capitalism, Art, Writing, Good writing, How to be a writer, My aesthetic
“Some friends don’t understand this. They don’t understand how desperate I am to have someone say, I love you and I support you just the way you are because you’re wonderful just the way you are. They don’t understand that I can’t remember anyone ever saying that to me. I am so demanding and difficult for my friends because I want to crumble and fall apart before them so that they will love me even though I am no fun, lying in bed, crying all the time, not moving. Depression is all about If you loved me you would.”
— Elizabeth Wurtzel, Prozac Nation
Tagged: Living With Depression, Sadness, Darkness, Mental Health, Waking Up, Demanding
loading next page...