The opposite of depression is not happiness, but vitality, and it was vitality that seemed to seep out of me.
Andrew SolomonThough many schizophrenics become curiously attached to their delusions, the fading of the nondelusional world puts them in loneliness beyond all reckoning, a fixed residence on a noxious private planet they can never leave, and where they can receive no visitors.
Andrew SolomonWe don't seek the painful experiences that hew our identities, but we seek our identities in the wake of painful experiences.
Andrew SolomonHaving always imagined myself in a fairly slim minority, I suddenly saw that I was in a vast company. Difference unites us. While each of these experiences can isolate those who are affected, together they compose an aggregate of millions whose struggles connect them profoundly. The exceptional is ubiquitous; to be entirely typical is the rare and lonely state.
Andrew Solomon