Quotes About Nellie Bly

#1. A free American girl can accommodate herself to circumstances without the aid of a man. -Nellie Bly

Matthew Goodman

#2. 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.

Nellie Bly

#3. Energy rightly applied and directed will accomplish anything.

Nellie Bly

#4. I have never written a word that did not come from my heart. I never shall.

Nellie Bly

#5. 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.

Nellie Bly

#6. 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.

Nellie Bly

#7. I said I could and I would. And I did.

Nellie Bly

#8. I always liked fog, it lends such a soft, beautifying light to things that otherwise in the broad glare of day would be rude and commonplace.

Nellie Bly

#9. How can a doctor judge a woman's sanity by merely bidding her good morning and refusing to hear her pleas for release? Even the sick ones know it is useless to say anything, for the answer will be that it is their imagination.

Nellie Bly

#10. I've always had the feeling that nothing is impossible is one applies a certain amount of energy in the right direction. If you want to do it, you can do it.

Nellie Bly

#11. I was too impatient to work at the usual duties assigned women on newspapers.

Nellie Bly

#12. I always had a desire to know asylum life more thoroughly - a desire to be convinced that the most helpless of God's creatures, the insane, were cared for kindly and properly.

Nellie Bly

#13. Even that was all consumed after two days, and the patients had to try to choke down fresh fish, just boiled in water, without salt, pepper or butter; mutton, beef, and potatoes without the faintest seasoning.

Nellie Bly

#14. People in the world can never imagine the length of days to those in asylums. They seemed never ending, and we welcomed any event that might give us something to think about as well as talk of.

Nellie Bly

#15. ENERGY RIGHTLY APPLIED CAN ACCOMPLISH ANYTHING.

Nellie Bly

#16. 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.

Nellie Bly

#17. ACCEPT PRAISE FOR ITS WORTH - POLITENESS. BE BRUTALLY FRANK WITH YOURSELF. IT'S SAFER.

Nellie Bly

#18. 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.

Nellie Bly

#19. 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.

Nellie Bly

#20. It is only after one is in trouble that one realizes how little sympathy and kindness there are in the world.

Nellie Bly

#21. 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

#22. 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!

Nellie Bly

#23. Never having failed, I could not picture what failure meant.

Nellie Bly

#24. 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.

Nellie Bly

#25. I had never been near insane persons before in my life, and had not the faintest idea of what their actions were like.

Nellie Bly

#26. 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.

Nellie Bly

#27. 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.

Nellie Bly

#28. 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.

Nellie Bly

#29. 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.

Nellie Bly

#30. All the asylum clothing is made by the patients, but sewing does not employ one's mind. After several months' confinement the thoughts of the busy world grow faint, and all the poor prisoners can do is to sit and ponder over their hopeless fate.

Nellie Bly

#31. Could I pass a week in the insane ward at Blackwell's Island? I said I could and I would. And I did.

Nellie Bly

#32. 'VERY WELL,' I SAID ANGRILY, 'START THE MAN, AND I'LL START THE SAME DAY FOR SOME OTHER NEWSPAPER AND BEAT HIM.'

Nellie Bly