Light like this does not exist, but we wish it did. We wish the sun could make us young and beautiful, we wish our clothes could glisten and ripple against our skins, most of all, we wish that everyone we knew could be brightened simply by our looking at them, as are the maid with the letter and the soldier with the hat.

Our hospital was famous and housed many great poets and singers. Did the hospital specialize in poets and singers or was it that poets and singers specialized in madness?

There is thought, and then there is thinking about thoughts, and they don't feel the same.

Mental illness seems to be a communication problem between interpreters one and two.

Whatever we call it - mind, character, soul - we like to think we possess something that is greater than the sum of our neurons and that animates us.

Which is worse, overload or underload? Luckily, I never had to choose. One or Pass on to where? Back into my cells to lurk like a virus waiting for the next opportunity? Out into the ether of the world to wait for the circumstances that would provoke its reappearance? Endogenous or exogenous, nature or nurture - it's the great mystery of mental illness.

Emptiness and boredom: what a complete understatement. What I felt was complete desolation. Desolation, despair and boredom.