Elizabeth Wurtzel
Elizabeth Wurtzel
Elizabeth Lee Wurtzel is an American writer and journalist, known for publishing her best-selling memoir Prozac Nation, at the age of 26. She holds a BA in comparative literature from Harvard College and a JD from Yale Law School...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth31 July 1967
CountryUnited States of America
family pajamas raise spend spent time writer
I used to feel that I spent too much of my time in my pajamas doing nothing, and I'd think 'in the time that I don't spend writing, I could raise a family of five.' In a lot of ways, being a writer is lonely and alienating.
accumulate civility ended failed kids life
By never marrying, I ended up never divorcing, but I also failed to accumulate that brocade of civility and padlock of security - kids you do or don't want, Tiffany silver you never use - that makes life complete.
audience behind both bruce connects holds jobs means people scenes
Bruce Springsteen really got any creative person's dream career, and his good-heartedness and good-spiritedness are part of it: both because it made the people behind the scenes want to do their jobs that much better, but it also means that he connects with an audience in a way that holds them close.
truth
The truth is that I'd always wanted to go to law school.
I don't know what to do if I am not inspiring some sort of false fascination.
amount felt good great needed persistent rejections takes wrong
Everything good takes a great amount of effort. Like, things went wrong with 'Prozac Nation' so much, and it went through so many rejections and incarnations, but I felt so much that it needed to exist. But if I hadn't been so persistent and insistent, it wouldn't have happened.
good high people seem straight studied talking time unless
Some people just seem like they are up to no good. Like, in high school, I was a good student and got straight As. It was very strict, and you couldn't do well there unless you studied very hard, but every time there was any trouble, I was the first person they would be talking to.
calmed competing dramas engaged life spent trying
I've calmed down. Looking back, I was engaged more in dramas than I was in relationships. I've spent a lot of my life being in it for the plot, and I don't do that anymore. I'm satisfied. I'm not competing with myself. I accomplished things I wanted to do, so everything I do now is because I want to, not because I'm trying to prove something.
across basically believe cannot chunk debris fell hard roof sat street time top trade
I had a really hard time after 9/11. I was basically living across the street from the World Trade Center, and a big chunk of debris fell on top of my building, and the roof caved in. I thought I was going to die. Really. I'd never thought that before, but on that day I sat there and thought 'I cannot believe it's going to end this way.'
character depression existence fallen felt justified love loved strange
In a strange way, I had fallen in love with my depression. Dr. Sterling was right about that. I loved it because I thought it was all I had. I thought depression was the part of my character that made me worthwhile. I thought so little of myself, felt that I had such scant offerings to give to the world, that the one thing that justified my existence at all was my agony.
anyone believe choice choose chose meant motivated reason
I am motivated to write because it is what I am meant to do. It is not a choice - it is what I am. I did not choose writing - it chose me. And I believe it is necessarily that way. Anyone doing this for some other reason should not be.
growing-up father real
Love is rather impotent and pitiful: My father must have told me a million times how much he loved me, but that emotion - assuming it was even real - hardly had the strength to counter the many other acts of wrong he committed against me. Contrary to romance novels and the love-conquers-all mentality that even those of us who grow up in an era of divorce are - in response to some atavistic instinct - still raised to believe, love is always a product and a victim of circumstances. It is fragile and small.
fall rain littles
Into every sunny life a little rain must fall.
years perspective giving
Years of depression have robbed me of that—well, that give, that elasticity that everyone else calls perspective.