"I had never felt so lonely and so sad in my entire life"
About this Quote
The context around Susan Smith makes that emotional register do double work. When a criminal figure deploys a maximal, absolute sentence, it functions as narrative triage: overwhelm the room with pain so scrutiny feels cruel. The subtext isn’t only "I’m suffering", but "Don’t look too closely at what I did or what I’m hiding; look at what’s happening to me". It’s a shift from culpability to victimhood, from accountability to atmosphere.
There’s also a cultural script here: the public has been trained to treat visible grief as proof. Smith’s language leans into that instinct, offering a clean, quotable capsule of despair that can travel through headlines and soundbites. The rhetorical move is simple but potent: if the audience accepts the extremity of her loneliness, they may grant her the one thing she needs most - sympathetic attention - even when the larger story demands skepticism.
Quote Details
| Topic | Loneliness |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Smith, Susan. (2026, January 15). I had never felt so lonely and so sad in my entire life. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-had-never-felt-so-lonely-and-so-sad-in-my-164578/
Chicago Style
Smith, Susan. "I had never felt so lonely and so sad in my entire life." FixQuotes. January 15, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-had-never-felt-so-lonely-and-so-sad-in-my-164578/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"I had never felt so lonely and so sad in my entire life." FixQuotes, 15 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-had-never-felt-so-lonely-and-so-sad-in-my-164578/. Accessed 13 Feb. 2026.







