“Defective is an adjective that has long been deemed too freighted for liberal discourse, but the medical terms that have supplanted it—illness, syndrome, condition—can be almost equally pejorative in their discreet way. We often use illness to disparage a way… — Andrew Solomon Copy Share Image
I started traveling out of curiosity, but I have come to believe in travel's political importance, that encouraging a nation's citizenry to travel may… — Andrew Solomon Copy Share Image
When I was born, the wisdom was that homosexuality was an illness; that it was caused largely by somebody's mother, and a distorted relationship… — Andrew Solomon Copy Share Image
A lot of people are very political when they are young, and then they outgrow it. — Andrew Solomon Copy Share Image
Having always imagined myself in a fairly slim minority, I suddenly saw that I was in a vast company. Difference unites us. While each… — Andrew Solomon Copy Share Image
If your love didn't always contain the possibility of loss, it would be very different from human love as we know it. — Andrew Solomon Copy Share Image
Antonin Artaud wrote on one of his drawings, "Never real and always true," and that is how depression feels. You know that it is… — Andrew Solomon Copy Share Image
I met people on college campuses who were defining themselves as genderqueer to express revolutionary feelings, or to communicate their individuality; they were gender… — Andrew Solomon Copy Share Image
“In the throws of depression, one reaches a strange point at which it is impossible to see the line between ones own theatricality and the reality of madness. I discovered two conflicting qualities of character. I am melodramatic by nature; on the other hand, I can go out and “seem normal” under the most abnormal of circumstances. Antonin Artaud wrote… — Andrew Solomon Copy Share
“Since I am writing a book about depression, I am often asked in social situations to describe my own experiences, and I usually end by saying that I am on medication. “Still?” people ask. “But you seem fine!” To which I invariably reply that I seem fine because I am fine, and that I am fine in part because of… — Andrew Solomon Copy Share
One the one hand, the simple fact that there are children and that I do have an effect on them has been one of the most potent antidepressants that I've ever had. And on the other hand, there are moments when I feel imprisoned by the reality that I can no longer make my decisions just for myself, that I… — Andrew Solomon Copy Share
