Everyone has good cause for suicide, or at least it seems that way to those who search for it. (74)

I had been simply treating water, settling on surviving and avoiding pain rather than being actively involved in seeking out life.

I think that when you're depressed, you can't concentrate long enough and well enough to read for the most part; some people can, but by and large people - that's one of the first things that goes, is the capacity to read meaningful literature. With grief, that's not true. For a while you can't read, but then you really are amenable to solace.

Exuberance is a gift of grace that allows us to move on, to seek, to love again.

The assumption that rigidly rejecting words and phrases that have existed for centuries will have much impact on public attitudes is rather dubious.

From a public health point of view, still the overwhelming problem is that people are not treated enough for depression; depression remains under treated.

I have often asked myself whether, given the choice, I would choose to have manic-depressive illness. If lithium were not available to me, or didn't work for me, the answer would be a simple no... and it would be an answer laced with terror. But lithium does work for me, and therefore I can afford to pose the question. Strangely enough, I think I would choose to have it. It's complicated.