Its so hard to talk when you want to kill yourself. That's above and beyond everything else, and it's not a mental complaint-it's a physical thing, like it's physically hard to open your mouth and make the words come out. They don't come out smooth and in conjunction with your brain the way normal people's words do; they come out in chunks as if from a crushed-ice dispenser; you stumble on them as they gather behind your lower lip. So you just keep quiet.

I have a system with bathrooms. I spend a lot of time in them. They are sanctuaries, public places of peace spaced throughout the world for people like me.

Sometimes when you open a book, time stops.

I had fooled myself into thinking that I was something important to the rest of the world.

Life is not cured, Mr. Gilner." Dr. Mahmoud leans in. "Life is managed.

(...) Since I was a kid." "Which you refer to as 'back when you were happy.'" "Right.

Sometimes I just think depression's one way of coping with the world. Like, some people get drunk, some people do drugs, some people get depressed. Because there's so much stuff out there that you have to do something to deal with it.