Literature doesn’t exactly have a strong mental-health track record.

Death is something you cannot escape, such as death, or a cheesecake that has curdled, both of which always turn up sooner later.

Literature doesn’t exactly have a strong mental-health track record.

This is like a cookie, it tastes like a cookie having sex with a doughnut.

Bad circumstances have a way of ruining things that would otherwise be pleasant.

You might find it difficult to see anything but your own sadness, the way smoke can cover a landscape so that all anyone can see is black. You may find that if someone pours water all over you, you are damp and distracted, but not cured of your sadness, the way a fire department can douse a fire but never recover what has been burnt down.

If you are a student you should always get a good nights sleep unless you have come to the good part of your book, and then you should stay up all night and let your schoolwork fall by the wayside, a phrase which means 'flunk'.