"next to normal" starters
“We’re the perfect, loving family. If they say we’re not, then fuck ‘em!”
“Mine is just a slower suicide.”
“You’ve got some nerve, [name].”
“I can’t fix what’s fucked up, but one thing, I know I can do.”
“I think the house is spinning.”
“I don’t need a life that’s normal; that’s way too far away.”
“I might be lazy, a loner, a bit of a stoner, it’s true.”
“I’ll make myself perfect for you.”
“They say love is blind, but believe me, love is insane.”
“I have absolutely no desire for sex, although whether that’s the medicine or the marriage is anyone’s guess.”
“Let’s see this thing true.”
“For all the times that I’ve been told the way this illness goes, the truth of it is no one really knows.”
“I’ll come by here at eight. If you show, then we’ll go. If you don’t… well, we’ll see.”
“Who’s crazy, the one who has treatments, or the one who just lives with the pain?”
“You just don’t give up.”
“Uh, [name] can’t really stay, he’s got, uh… homework! …Surgery! …Rabies!”
“This is one fucked-up seduction.”
“I’m trying to tell you, I love you.”
“So you could go crazy, or I could go crazy. It’s true.”
“You’re living on a latte and a prayer.”
“Oh, and one last thing! Use may be fatal.”
“I want who I knew. S/He’s somewhere in you.”
“Not a very exact science, is it?”
“We’re wondering where you are.”
“It was raining, it was Portland, you eloped!”
“You’re not a scary rock star anymore.”
“Something next to normal would be okay.”
“Here’s the damage to the Honda when you showed me how to park it.”
“Maybe we can’t be okay, but maybe we’re tough and we’ll try anyway.”
“Take what you know and then make it make sense!”
“You’ve got to let him go.”
“He’s been dead for [x] years.”
“He died before I was born.”
“My son’s a little shit.”
“I couldn’t give a flying fuck what’s normal. We haven’t had a normal day in years.”
“Valium is my favorite color. How’d you know?”
“I thought you might call.”
“Where has all this caring been for [x] years?”
“It’s some spring formal dance. It’s March first, and it’s cheese, but it’s fun and it’s free.”
“The medicine failed and the doctors lied.”
“Here’s the house on [street] after the fire.”
“Did we crush somebody’s cat beneath the tire?”
“My daughter, though a genius, is a freak.”
“Well, that’s how I remember it, so that’s how it’ll be.”
“I love you as much as I can.”
“Do you know what it’s like to die alive?”
“Which is worse, the symptom or the cure?”
“We’ll live, you’ll see.”
“Some days I think I’m dying, but I’m really only trying to get through.”
“I swear that somewhere in the night there’s a light in the dark.”
“Feeling like I’ll live forever.”
“Didn’t I see this movie, and didn’t I cry?”
“We’d sink like the Titanic, but faster.”
“You’re, like, number three on my list of problems.”
“You can’t sit here all alone in the dark.”
“[Name] learned what his/her middle finger meant.”
“Your life has kinda sucked, I think.”
“We can get things back to better than before.”
“Won’t anything be better than before?”
“Someone simply said, your child is…”
“Maybe I’ll let myself fall.”
“Stay with me, try again.”
“Fake some confidence and cheer.”
“I wish I could fly. I’d fly far away from here.”
“Play ‘til the strings or your fingernails break.”
“I don’t feel like myself. I mean, I don’t feel anything.”
“I am the one who knows you, I am the one who cares.”
“There’s nothing your paranoid parents can say.”
“I loved you once and though I love you still, I know it’s time for me to go.”
“Don’t walk out on treatment.”
“I made it to the school.”
“Honey, you need to slow down, take some time for yourself.”
“So anyway, I’m leaving.”
“[Name]? It’s 4 in the morning, is everything okay?”
“You’re my favorite problem.”
“I’ll take a chance on leaving.”
“Will you come to the dance?”
“The visions are just your defense.”
“I gained six pounds, which, you know, is just… not fair.”
“Great. Thanks. I’m so glad I know that.”
“Give me pain, if that’s what’s real.”
“Is there nothing left to grieve?”
“Every day this act we act gets more and more absurd.”
“Are you bruised? Are you broken?”
“I know you know who I am.”
“I am the one who loved you.”
“You don’t have to be happy at all to be happy you’re alive.”
“All those years I prayed that you’d go away for good, half the time afraid that you really would.”
“Even if everything else turns to dirt, we’ll be the one thing in this world that won’t hurt.”
“You’ve got to let go, [name]. I’m almost eighteen.”
“I’ll be up for sex in a moment.”
“I’m going to have sex with your father.”
“You’ll find some way to survive.”
“There is no cure, but that doesn’t mean we don’t fight!”
“I thought we were through.”
“Sometimes life is insane, but crazy, I know I can do.”
“Most people who think they’re happy are actually just stupid.”
“I didn’t know you had a brother.”
“Well, that’ll teach you to take a whole ten minutes.”
“You’re going to be late and you have a big day!”
“I am the one who stayed.”
“We tried to give you a normal life. I realize now I have no clue what that is.”
