Life is enriched by difficulty; love is made more acute when it requires exertion. — Andrew Solomon Copy Share Image
I believe that words are strong, that they can overwhelm what we fear when fear seems more awful than life is good. — Andrew Solomon Copy Share Image
A breakdown involves getting to the point at which your mental state prevents you from doing the normal things of your everyday… — Andrew Solomon Copy Share Image
Now, it's not that I think that being gay is the most amazing, wonderful thing in the world, but I have a… — 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… — Andrew Solomon Copy Share Image
Most people imagine that resolving particular problems will make them happy. If only one had more money, or love, or success, then… — Andrew Solomon Copy Share Image
I would have had an easier life if I were straight, but I would not be me. And I now like being… — Andrew Solomon Copy Share Image
Every stage of life longs for others. When one is young and eager, one aspires to maturity, and everyone older would like… — Andrew Solomon Copy Share Image
I was kind of a scaredy-cat as a kid, and I made a very deliberate decision at some point that I was… — Andrew Solomon Copy Share Image
One of the things that frequently gets lost in descriptions of depression is that the depressed person often knows that it is… — Andrew Solomon Copy Share Image
I've had a mental illness for nearly half my life, and I can no longer imagine myself without it. It seems less… — Andrew Solomon Copy Share Image
The most important thing to remember about depression is this: you do not get the time back. It is not tacked on… — Andrew Solomon Copy Share Image
While people argue with one another about the specifics of Freud's work and blame him for the prejudices of his time, they… — Andrew Solomon Copy Share Image
“While people argue with one another about the specifics of Freud’s work and blame him for the prejudices of his time, they… — Andrew Solomon Copy Share Image
What has become clear to me is that it is not the inherent nature of being gay that causes such a reduced… — Andrew Solomon Copy Share Image
There is enormous shame around depression of any kind and at any time. And there's enormous social stigma attached to it, which… — Andrew Solomon Copy Share Image
“In the heat of an argument, my mother once told me, "Someday you can go to a therapist and tell him all… — Andrew Solomon Copy Share Image
I'm attached to my children with whatever flaws they have, and if some glorious angel broke through the living room ceiling and… — Andrew Solomon Copy Share Image
“Belonging is one of the things that makes life bearable, and it can be tough to look at a binary world and… — Andrew Solomon Copy Share Image
“There is so much pain in the world, and most of these people keep theirs secret, rolling through agonizing lives in invisible… — Andrew Solomon Copy Share Image
I just look at my own life, which is full of error as all life is. I have done plenty of things… — Andrew Solomon Copy Share Image
“There is no life that does not have the material for despair in it, but some people go too close to the… — Andrew Solomon Copy Share Image
I have spent a lot of my life trying to do good and be a humanitarian, to write about difficult places, and… — Andrew Solomon Copy Share Image
Then I repeated these words to my spirits: 'Leave me be; give me peace; and let me do the work of my… — Andrew Solomon Copy Share Image
If some glorious angel suddenly descended through my living room ceiling and offered to take away the children I have and give… — Andrew Solomon Copy Share Image
As a little kid in the late 1960s, I was afraid of the world. Even if I didn't get caught in the… — Andrew Solomon Copy Share Image
“The opposite of depression is not happiness, but vitality and my life, as I write this, is vital even when sad. I… — 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… — Andrew Solomon Copy Share Image
“Since I am writing a book about depression, I am often asked in social situations to describe my own experiences, and I usually end… — Andrew Solomon Copy Share Image
One the one hand, the simple fact that there are children and that I do have an effect on them has been one of… — Andrew Solomon Copy Share Image
