Narcolepsy Quotes

“I didn’t want to upset my loved ones, but I couldn’t carry this alone.”
― Julie Flygare, Wide Awake and Dreaming: A Memoir

“I’ve heard that sometimes a version of you must die before another more enlightened version can be born. I think that’s true after watching the corpse of myself walk around.”
― Julie Flygare, Wide Awake and Dreaming: A Memoir

“The doorway smells of lavender, of freshly brewed chamomile tea, and my doll eyes flutter, suddenly heavy, like silver coins placed on the eyelids of the dead.
I feel the soft, dreamy tug of a gentle wind. Easy and quiet. Like bedding down in a knoll of moss, or sinking into a cellar, without sound.”
― Shea Ernshaw, Long Live the Pumpkin Queen

“Delwyn believed that some secrets were meant to stay in the shadows.”
― Kelly Proudfoot, Delwyn of the Realms

“Which sort of shows why my body is an idiot, because forced narcolepsy is pretty much the worst defense ever.”
― Jenny Lawson, Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things

“Normally, it takes people about 60 to 90 minutes to reach REM sleep, so they wouldn’t enter this stage during a 20 minute nap. People with narcolepsy often enter REM sleep soon after falling asleep. If a person enters REM sleep in two or more of the five naps in eight minutes or less during the study, it’s highly suggestive of narcolepsy.”
― Julie Flygare, Wide Awake and Dreaming: A Memoir

“One foot in each world, riding them simultaneously; expecting not to fall.”
― Kelly Proudfoot, Delwyn of the Realms

“I know you were lying to me the whole night. That's OK because I lied to you too. I said I didn’t remember what I felt like before my accident, before I became the narcoleptic me. I remember what it felt like. I was awake, always awake. I didn’t miss anything. I could read books for more than a few pages at a time. I didn’t smoke. I watched movies from start to finish in real goddamn theaters, wouldn’t even leave my seat to go to the bathroom. I stayed up late on purpose. Woke up and went to sleep when I wanted. Sleep was my pet, something I control, schedule, took for walks. Sit up, roll over, lie down, stay down, give me your fucking paw. Not now, only me, and everything else is on the periphery. Just slightly out of reach or out of touch or out of time. I don’t have a real career or a real life. Ellen supports me and I sleepwalk through the rest.”
― Paul Tremblay, The Little Sleep

“Perhaps there are some decisions that are beyond thought, beyond logic, beyond science, and beyond health. Decisions that others can't help us make; things we must do for ourselves because if we don't, we'd only be cheating ourselves. There would always be complications and failures. I could have sat around thinking about the "what ifs" and "maybes". Or, I could've stood up, started running and watched what happened. I chose to run.”
― Julie Flygare, Wide Awake and Dreaming: A Memoir

“Don't be afraid!" Tim hollered from the car. 'Seek the truth!"
"Yeah, seek the truth," Mac said. His eyes moved in his head as if he was trying to understand something himself. And for the first time, I considered that maybe there were no doors after all. Maybe when you look for a man's door, you create it. You create the door that shuts you out. I looked past him and focused on the door I could see.”
― Penelope Przekop, Aberrations

“Don't be afraid!" Tim hollered from the car. "Seek the truth!"
"Yeah, seek the truth," Mac said. His eyes moved in his head as if he was trying to understand something himself. And for the first time, I considered that maybe there were no doors after all. Maybe when you look for a man's door, you create it. You create the door that shuts you out. I looked past him and focused on the door I could see.”
― Penelope Przekop, Aberrations

“I have the sense that a lot of time has passed. Or maybe just a little. I have no way of knowing.”
― Paul Tremblay, The Little Sleep

“But that's how time works for me. My constant enemy, it attacks whenever I'm not looking.”
― Paul Tremblay, The Little Sleep

“Because waiting in lines is detrimental to my tenuous mental state, I walk toward the front.”
― Paul Tremblay, The Little Sleep

“But my lights are dimming a bit already, an encroaching numbness to the excitement and bustle around me.”
― Paul Tremblay, The Little Sleep

“Sleep is heavy. It has mass.”
― Paul Tremblay, The Little Sleep

“They think I'm lazy or just odd.”
― Paul Tremblay, The Little Sleep

“Most people think I really could keep from falling asleep if I wanted to. If I just focused, like narcolepsy is some algebraic equation I could solve if I worked at it hard enough, did all the homework. I'm a bad joke, a punchline.”
― Paul Tremblay, The Little Sleep

“Sleep is coming. I feel it. At least this time, I want it.”
― Paul Tremblay, The Little Sleep

“I'm tired. I'm always tired. It's part of being me.”
― Paul Tremblay, The Little Sleep

“As if 'careful' ever has anything to do with Narcolepsy.”
― Paul Tremblay, The Little Sleep

“I can nod my head and add the occasional commiserative chuckle in my sleep.”
― Paul Tremblay, No Sleep Till Wonderland

“All my mornings are false starts.”
― Paul Tremblay, No Sleep Till Wonderland

“A narcoleptic is the ultimate cynic, left with nothing to believe in- least of all himself- because everything could simply be a dream, and a lousy meaningless one at that.”
― Paul Tremblay, No Sleep Till Wonderland

“Yeah, because all it takes to know narcolepsy is an hour or two in the afternoon.”
― Paul Tremblay, No Sleep Till Wonderland