I have a remarkable ability to delete all better judgement from my brain when I get my headset on something. I have no sense of moderation, no sense of caution. Furthermore, I have no sense pretty much.

— Marya Hornbacher

I look back on my life the way one watches a badly scripted action flick, sitting at the edge of the seat, bursting out, "No, no, don't open that door! The bad guy is in there, and he'll grab you and put his hand over your mouth and tie you up, and then you'll miss the train and everything will fall apart!" Except there is no bad guy in this tale. The person who jumped through the door and grabbed me and tied me up was, unfortunately, me. My double image, the evil skinny chick who hisses, Don't eat. I'm not going to let you eat. I'll let you go as soon as you're thin, I swear I will. Everything will be okay when you're thin.

— Marya Hornbacher

I missed him so much that it felt like a physical pain in the area below my ribs. I opened my mouth to accommodate it. Furthermore, I put my hand to it. A hollow, aching, piercing place.

— Marya Hornbacher

In her presence, I was reminded again of why I was an anorexic: fear. Of my needs, for food, for sleep, for touch, for simple conversation, for human contact, for love. I was an anorexic because I was afraid of being human. Implicit in human contact is the exposure of the self, the interaction of the selves. The self I'd had, once upon a time, was too much. Now there was no self at all. I was a blank.

— Marya Hornbacher

In that six months, so much happened that death seemed, primarily, inconvenient. The trial period was extended. I seem to keep extending it. There are many things to do. There are books to write and naps to take. There are movies to see and scrambled eggs to eat. Life is essentially trivial. You either decide you will take the trite business of life and give yourself the option of doing something really cool, or you decide you will opt for the Grand Epic of eating disorders and dedicate your life to being seriously trivial.

— Marya Hornbacher

I relish my life. It’s the one I have. It’s difficult, beautiful, painful, full of laughter, passing strange. Whatever else it is, whatever it brings – it’s mine.

— Marya Hornbacher

It's fascinating to me how all of us can experience the exact same event, and yet come away with wildly disparate interpretations of what happened. We each have totally different ideas of what was said, what was intended, and what really took place.

— Marya Hornbacher

I was used to sleeping with people because I endlessly found myself in identical situations where it was easier to just fuck them than to say no.

— Marya Hornbacher

My brain sometimes departs from the agreed-upon reality, and my private reality is a very lonely place. But in the end, I'm not sure if I wish I'd never gone there.

— Marya Hornbacher

Never, never underestimate the power of desire. If you want to live badly enough, you can live. The great question, at least for me, was: How do I decide I want to live?

— Marya Hornbacher