“As much as I loathe this aging thing, I’m beginning to recognize that I am now a healthier person in terms of self-worth and knowing who I am and where I fit in the world. That’s been a good trade-off for the wrinkles.”
― Patty Duke
“I was a truly loving mom, but I didn’t have the tools to do the job.”
― Patty Duke
“No matter what your laundry list of requirements in choosing a mate, there has to be an element of good luck and good fortune and good timing.”
― Patty Duke
“It’s toughest to forgive ourselves. So it’s probably best to start with other people. It’s almost like peeling an onion. Layer by layer, forgiving others, you really do get to the point where you can forgive yourself.”
― Patty Duke
“I tell people to monitor their self-pity. Self-pity is very unattractive.”
― Patty Duke
“I still have highs and lows, just like any other person. What’s missing is the lack of control over the super highs, which became destructive, and the super lows, which are immediately destructive.”
― Patty Duke
“I can’t tell you what I had for breakfast, but I can sing every single word of rock and roll.”
― Patty Duke
“Reality is hard. It is no walk in the park, this thing called Life.”
― Patty Duke
“I’m surviving a life-threatening illness. Many do not, such as those without celebrity and fortune who have to depend on the public healthcare system.”
― Patty Duke
“My life was ripped off!”
― Patty Duke
“One of the reasons I survived as well as I did was my genetics. My mother and father both had very tough lives, and boy, were they survivors.”
― Patty Duke
“When I’m 80 and sitting in a rocking chair listening to the Rolling Stones, there is absolutely no way I’m going to feel old or forget my younger days.”
― Patty Duke
“Actors take risks all the time. We put ourselves on the line. It is creative to be able to interpret someone’s words and breathe life into them.”
― Patty Duke
“For the first time, I lived alone… in a luxury apartment on Sunset Strip. For a few days I loved the idea, but I got lonely and restless.”
― Patty Duke
“Human beings have speculated about the relationship between inspiration and insanity for centuries.”
― Patty Duke
“I believe that all the important people in my life prior to 1982 were victimized by my illness.”
― Patty Duke
“I can’t even remember how many times I tried to kill myself.”
― Patty Duke
“I had been very close to Anne Bancroft when we worked together in The Miracle Worker.”
― Patty Duke
“I have a picture of myself in my mind as I walk around every day, until I look in the mirror-and then I’m stunned.”
― Patty Duke
“I have been afraid all my life that I am going to die. All my life it has been stuffed in my imagination.”
― Patty Duke
“I have two books that were published quite some time ago. I start to read about three sentences. I have to close it. I am so self-conscious. Who did I think I was?”
― Patty Duke
“I joke around a lot about the manic times because they’re funny. We manics do outrageous things and it is part of our colorful nature.”
― Patty Duke
“I kind of like the position of being the fair-haired savior of my mother.”
― Patty Duke
“I knew from a very young age that there was something very wrong with me.”
― Patty Duke
“I never did quite fit the glamour mode. It is life with my husband and family that is my high now.”
― Patty Duke
“I think my real depressions started when I was about 16 and doing The Patty Duke Show. I would go to bed at about 10 o’clock on a Friday night and not get up again until 6:30 Monday morning.”
― Patty Duke
“I’m going to be 58, and I’m a woman. In this business, that seems to be a bigger crime than being mentally ill.”
― Patty Duke
“I’m living out a childhood fantasy. Our house is in a historic district of a small town that I used to read about in storybooks.”
― Patty Duke
“I’m not sure I want all my neuroses cleared up.”
― Patty Duke
“I’ve come to believe that whoever I am didn’t start on December 14, 1946, and isn’t going to end on whatever that mysterious date is in the future.”
― Patty Duke
“If I have any message for others, it is to go for help early and not to be a resistant patient.”
― Patty Duke
“My recovery from manic depression has been an evolution, not a sudden miracle.”
― Patty Duke
“Sometimes it is the simplest, seemingly most inane, most practical stuff that matters the most to someone.”
― Patty Duke
“The doctors must tell you that one of the risks of surgery is that you might die. This poor doctor was talking to an actress. It was very dramatic to me. To him, it was just a thing he had to say.”
― Patty Duke
“The Eleanor Roosevelt Award that I received for women’s rights activities is one I treasure.”
― Patty Duke
“The mania started with insomnia and not eating and being driven, driven to find an apartment, driven to see everybody, driven to do New York, driven to never shut up.”
― Patty Duke
“The panic attacks – I still have them. They started when I was around 8. They always have to do with my death.”
― Patty Duke
“We have developed this unbelievable ability to deny. We have to. If we didn’t, we’d go crazy.”
― Patty Duke
“When I don’t know what the music is going to be for a scene, I imagine some sort of orchestration going on and damned if they don’t usually come up with a similar kind of thing.”
― Patty Duke
“You can have manic-depression without having an ounce of creativity.”
― Patty Duke
“I met my husband while I was making a movie.”
― Patty Duke
“I’m spoiled rotten, as my children would tell you.”
― Patty Duke
“No amount of therapy will take care of a chemical imbalance of the brain.”
― Patty Duke
“Due to my sometimes erratic behavior, my children tried very hard to avoid me and not do anything to set me off.”
― Patty Duke
“At the age of 19, I removed myself from society for almost four months, setting off years of manic episodes, including outrageous overspending. I bought several Mercedes because I thought I could. I had no money, but I rented a jet.”
― Patty Duke
“If stars behave in an erratic fashion, it’s called ‘colorful,’ as opposed to, ‘Well, maybe there’s a problem there.’”
― Patty Duke
“I was a very isolated teenager.”
― Patty Duke
“I’ve gotten to the age where I’m comfortable with just about everything – except getting old!”
― Patty Duke
“Without a sense of humor, I would have been gone a long time ago.”
― Patty Duke
“When we want to say something negative to somebody we say, ‘Aww, you’re so crazy.’”
― Patty Duke
“I’ve survived. I’ve beaten my own bad system, and on some days, on most days, that feels like a miracle.”
― Patty Duke
“I worshipped my father.”
― Patty Duke
“Bipolar indicates that you’re not – you don’t just experience depression, but the mood swing goes up, and it can go very up.”
― Patty Duke
“Nobody gets through life on a pass.”
― Patty Duke
“Fairness is really important to me.”
― Patty Duke
“It’s not a giant thrill to hear someone give you the label ‘manic-depressive,’ but to me I was so relieved. What I was suffering from had a name and could be treated.”
― Patty Duke
“During the rocky times, it never occurred to me that one day I would hold a position of respect and responsibility in the community.”
― Patty Duke
Leave a Reply