quotations about depression
Anyone who has actually been that sad can tell you that there's nothing beautiful or literary or mysterious about depression.
JASMINE WARGA
My Heart and Other Black Holes
A phenomenon that a number of people have noted while in deep depression is the sense of being accompanied by a second self -- a wraithlike observer who, not sharing the dementia of his double, is able to watch with dispassionate curiosity as his companion struggles against the oncoming disaster, or decides to embrace it. There is a theatrical quality about all this, and during the next several days, as I went about stolidly preparing for extinction, I couldn't shake off a sense of melodrama -- a melodrama in which I, the victim-to-be of self-murder, was both the solitary actor and lone member of the audience.
WILLIAM STYRON
Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness
Something crucial about depression ... the smarter you were, the worse it was. The sharper your brain, the more it cut you up.
JEFFREY EUGENIDES
The Marriage Plot
Laugh at depression and depression will join in.
JOSEPH JULIUS BONKOWSKI
Quote Me
My depression is the most faithful mistress I have known -- no wonder, then, that I return the love.
SOREN KIERKEGAARD
Either/Or
Like those rare conditions which causes a person's own immune system to assault itself, depression is a disorder wherein the self attacks the self.
TERRENCE REAL
I Don't Want to Talk About It: Overcoming the Secret Legacy of Male Depression
I was depressed ... I was suicidal. As a matter of fact, I would have killed myself but I was in analysis with a strict Freudian and if you kill yourself they make you pay for the sessions you miss.
WOODY ALLEN
Annie Hall
Whenever I get depressed, I raise my hemlines. If things don't change, I am bound to be arrested.
CALISTA FLOCKHART
Ally McBeal
There are wounds that never show on the body that are deeper and more hurtful than anything that bleeds.
LAURELL K. HAMILTON
Mistral's Kiss
Depression is a choice.
A.B. CURTISS
Depression Is a Choice
I'll never forget how the depression and loneliness felt good and bad at the same time. Still does.
HENRY ROLLINS
The Portable Henry Rollins
The sun stopped shining for me is all. The whole story is: I am sad. I am sad all the time and the sadness is so heavy that I can't get away from it. Not ever.
NINA LACOUR
Hold Still
The difference between common sadness and clinical depression is like the difference between breathing hard after a fast sprint and being chronically short-of-breath. The former is expected and normal, given the stress of the sprint; the latter is an abnormal condition.
WALTER F. MCDERMOTT
Understanding Combat Related Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
It's brilliant, being depressed; you can behave as badly as you like.
NICK HORNBY
High Fidelity
Depression is nature's way of telling you that you've got complex social problems that the mind is intent on solving. Therapies should try to encourage depressive rumination rather than try to stop it, and they should focus on trying to help people solve the problems that trigger their bouts of depression.
PAUL W. ANDREWS
"Depression's Evolutionary Roots", Scientific American, August 25, 2009
People who drink to drown their sorrow should be told that sorrow knows how to swim.
ANN LANDERS
attributed, The Mammoth Book of Zingers
Noble deeds and hot baths are the best cures for depression.
DODIE SMITH
I Capture the Castle
Others imply that they know what it is like to be depressed because they have gone through a divorce, lost a job, or broken up with someone. But these experiences carry with them feelings. Depression, instead, is flat, hollow, and unendurable. It is also tiresome. People cannot abide being around you when you are depressed. They might think that they ought to, and they might even try, but you know and they know that you are tedious beyond belief: you are irritable and paranoid and humorless and lifeless and critical and demanding and no reassurance is ever enough. You're frightened, and you're frightening, and you're "not at all like yourself but will be soon," but you know you won't.
KAY REDFIELD JAMISON
An Unquiet Mind
I have never been remotely ashamed of having been depressed. Never. What's to be ashamed of? I went through a really rough time and I am quite proud that I got out of that.
J. K. ROWLING
USA Today, Mar. 23, 2008
She married her sadness and slept with happiness on the weekends.
CHRISTOPHER POINDEXTER
Remington Typewriter Poetry