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But here let me say one thing: From the moment I entered the insane ward on the Island, I made no attempt to keep up the assumed role of insanity.

Nellie Bly

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Nellie Bly
Age: 57 †
Born: 1864
Born: May 5
Died: 1922
Died: January 27
Journalist
Novelist
Suffragist
Writer
Armstrong County
Pennsylvania
Elly Cochran
Elizabeth Cochran Seaman
Elizabeth Jane Cochran
Elizabeth Cochran
Elizabeth Cochrane Seaman
Elizabeth Cochrane
Made
Attempt
Insane
Role
Ward
Roles
Assumed
Moment
Entered
Keep
Island
Moments
Insanity
Thing
Islands

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It is only after one is in trouble that one realizes how little sympathy and kindness there are in the world.
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I had, toward the last, been shut off from all visitors, and so when the lawyer, Peter A. Hendricks, came and told me that friends of mine were willing to take charge of me if I would rather be with them than in the asylum, I was only too glad to give my consent
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What a mysterious thing madness is. I have watched patients whose lips are forever sealed in a perpetual silence. They live, breathe, eat the human form is there, but that something, which the body can live without, but which cannot exist without the body, was missing.
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I hardly expected the grand jury to sustain me, after they saw everything different from what it had been while I was there. Yet they did, and their report to the court advises all the changes made that I had proposed.
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ENERGY RIGHTLY APPLIED CAN ACCOMPLISH ANYTHING.
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'VERY WELL,' I SAID ANGRILY, 'START THE MAN, AND I'LL START THE SAME DAY FOR SOME OTHER NEWSPAPER AND BEAT HIM.'
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I shuddered to think how completely the insane were in the power of their keepers, and how one could weep and plead for release, and all of no avail, if the keepers were so minded.
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I have watched patients stand and gaze longingly toward the city they in all likelihood will never enter again. It means liberty and life it seems so near, and yet heaven is not further from hell
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On the wagon sped, and I, as well as my comrades, gave a despairing farewell glance at freedom as we came in sight of the long stone buildings.
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I had never been near insane persons before in my life, and had not the faintest idea of what their actions were like
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They were being driven to a prison, through no fault of their own, in all probability for life. In comparison, how much easier it would be to walk to the gallows than to this tomb of living horrors!
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I was too impatient to work at the usual duties assigned women on newspapers.
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I always made a point of telling the doctors I was sane, and asking to be released, but the more I endeavored to assure them of my sanity, the more they doubted it
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I took upon myself to enact the part of a poor, unfortunate crazy girl, and felt it my duty not to shirk any of the disagreeable results that should follow.
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In our short walks we passed the kitchen where food was prepared for the nurses and doctors. There we got glimpses of melons and grapes and all kinds of fruits, beautiful white bread and nice meats, and the hungry feeling would be increased tenfold.
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I had looked forward so eagerly to leaving the horrible place, yet when my release came and I knew that God's sunlight was to be free for me again, there was a certain pain in leaving
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The insane asylum on Blackwell’s Island is a human rat-trap. It is easy to get in, but once there it is impossible to get out.
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