There are not schizophrenics. There are people with schizophrenia and these people may be your spouse, they may be your child, they may be your neighbor, they may be your friend, they may be your coworker.

The schizophrenic mind is not so much split as shattered. I like to say schizophrenia is like a waking nightmare.

Portray [people with mental illness] sympathetically, and portray them in all the richness and depth of their experience as people, and not as diagnoses.

I am a woman with chronic schizophrenia. I have spent hundreds of days in psychiatric hospitals. I could have ended up living most of my life on a back ward, but things turned out quite differently.

My good fortune is not that I've recovered from mental illness. I have not, nor will I ever. My good fortune lies in having found my life.

Some people still hold [the] view that restraints help psychiatric patients feel safe. I've never met a psychiatric patient who agreed.

My mind has been both my best friend and my worst enemy.