James Frey Quotes

Life is hard, Kid, you gotta be harder. You gotta take it on and fight for it and be a fucking man about how you live it. If you're too much of a pussy to do that, then maybe you should leave, 'cause you're dead already.

If you think you're making that choice, you're wrong. Your choices are made by the shit that controls you and the shit you can't quit. You walk out of here and that is going to kill you and that's fucking wrong.
Maybe, maybe not.
Maybe not my ass. How about walking back in and being a fucking man? How about walking back in and putting up a fucking fight? How about walking back in and doing what's decent and right and honorable and showing a little pride, just a little bit of fucking pride?

I don't want safety or support. I want there to be me and whatever I have to face, be it alcohol or drugs or something else. I want there to be a fight because I know how to fight. There will be a winner of that fight. If it's me, I walk away and I have beat the shit that I didn't think I could ever beat and I move on with my life. If it's not me, at least I get it over with.

He starts to break and seeing him start to break makes me start to break and I don't want that. He steps forward and puts his arms around me and he hugs me and I hug him and it feels good and strong and pure and real. This is my Brother, my Blood, the only thing in this World created from which I am created from, the Person in this World who knows me best, the Person who would miss me most if I was gone. That he cared enough to come here and that he cares enough to nearly break in front of me means something, but in the end, I know that it means only so much.

As I said before Kid, you walk out of here, and I'm having you brought back. As many times as it takes, I will have you brought the fuck back. You can go ahead and test me on that if you want, but I suggest you no. The smart thing would be to take my advice. I may be a coke Addict and a fellow Patient and a Fuck-Up of the First Order, but I am giving you good advice. Be smart, be strong, be proud, live honorably and with dignity and just hold on.

I don't blame you for this and I don't think there's anything you could have done to stop it. I am what I am, which is an Alcoholic and a Drug Addict and a Criminal, and I am whats I am because I made myself so. You did the best you could with me, and you loved me the best you could, and that's all I could have ever asked for from you. I have no excuses for what I've done or for who I am or for what I put you though all these years.

More than anything, all I have ever wanted is to be close to someone. More than anything, all I have ever wanted is to feel as if I wasn't alone.

Where the fuck did they make you, Kid?
What's that mean?
Where does someone like you come from?
I've lived a lot of places.
Like where?
Why do you care?
Just wondering.
Stop wondering.
Why?
I don't want to make friends here.
Why?
I don't like good-byes.
You gotta say them though.
No, you don't.

All of us started out normal. All of us started out as functioning human beings with the potential to do almost anything we wanted, but somewhere along the paths of our lives we got lost. Though we are here at this Clinic trying to find our way back, we all know that most of us will never get there. Things like the fight allow us to dream, and take us away from here, and allow us to imagine what the normal World must be like and how normal people must live in it.

[Leonard] gave me the best advice that I was given while I was at the center, which was to hold on. No matter how bad or difficult life becomes, if you hold on, hold on to whatever it is you need to hold on to, be it religion, friends, a support group, a set of steps or your own heart, if you hold on, just hold on, life will get better.

I don't know if I lost the courage to kill myself, or gained the strength not to, but I didn't do it. I kept living and drinking and doing drugs and fucking up. Eventually I ended up here.

I don't want to be alone. I have never wanted to be alone. I fucking hate it. I hate that I have no one to talk to, I hate that I have no one to call, I hate that I have no one to hold my hand, hug me, tell me everything is going to be all right....I hate that I have no one to share my hopes and my dreams with, I hate that I have no longer have any hopes or dreams, I hate that I have no one to tell me to hold on, that I can find them again. I hate that when I scream, and I scream bloody murder, that I am screaming into emptiness. I hate that there is no one to hear my scream and that there is no one to help me learn how to stop screaming.

Addiction is a decision. An individual wants something, whatever that something is, and makes a decision to get it. Once they have it, they make a decision to take it. If they take it too often, that process of decision making gets out of control, and if it gets far out of control, it becomes an addiction. At that point the decision is a difficult one to make, but it is still a decision. Do I or don't I. Am I going to take or am I not going to waste my life or am I going to say no and try and stay sober and be a decent Person. It is a decision. Each and every time. A decision. String enough of those decisions together and you set a course and you set a standard of living. Addict or human. Genetics do not make that call. They are just an excuse. They allow people to say it wasn't my fault I am genetically predisposed. It wasn't my fault I was programmed from day one. It wasn't my fault I didn't have any say in the matter. Bullshit. Fuck that bullshit. There is always a decision. Take responsibility for it. Addict or human. It's a fucking decision. Each and every time.

Sometimes skulls are thick. Sometimes hearts are vacant. Sometimes words don't work.

What I know is that I can trust his eyes because what lives in them, lives in me.