As soon as I was out in the street, I realized I didn't want to be alone after all, I realized I didn't want to be anything at all.

But just as a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing, a little bit of energy, in the hands of someone hell-bent on suicide, is a very dangerous thing.

In the meantime, I could withdraw to my room, could hide and sleep as if I were dead

I start to get the feeling that something is really wrong.

There are some remarks that are so stupid that to be even vaguely aware of them is the intellectual equivalent of living next door to Chernobyl.

My imagination, my ability to understand the way love and people grow over time, how passion can surprise and renew, utterly failed me.

That's the thing I want to make clear about depression: It's got nothing at all to do with life. In the course of life, there is sadness and pain and sorrow, all of which, in their right time and season, are normal-unpleasant, but normal. Depression is an altogether different zone because it involves a complete absence: absence of affect, absence of feeling, absence of response, absence of interest. The pain you feel in the course of a major clinical depression is an attempt on nature's part (nature, after all, abhors a vacuum) to fill up the empty space.