Knowledge is marvelous, but wisdom is even better.

Without science, there would be no such hope.

There is an assumption, in attaching Puritan concepts such as 'successful' and 'unsuccessful' to the awful, final act of suicide, that those who 'fail' at killing themselves not only are weak, but incompetent, incapable even of getting their dying quite right.

If I can't feel, if I can't move, if I can't think, and I can't care, then what conceivable point is there in living?

Anybody who's had to contend with mental illness - whether it's depression, bipolar illness or severe anxiety, whatever - actually has a fair amount of resilience in the sense that they've had to deal with suffering already, personal suffering.

The Chinese believe that before you can conquer a beast you first must make it beautiful. In some strange way, I have tried to do that with manic-depressive illness. It has been a fascinating, albeit deadly, enemy and companion; I have found it to be seductively complicated, a distillation both of what is finest in our natures, and of what is most dangerous.

Never once, during any of my bouts of depression, had I been inclined or able to pick up a telephone and ask a friend for help. It wasn't in me.