Twenty aspirin, a little slit alongside the veins of the arm, maybe even a bad half hour standing on a roof: We've all had those. And somewhat more dangerous things, like putting a gun in your mouth. But you put it there, you taste it, it's cold and greasy, your finger is on the trigger, and you find that a whole world lies between this moment and the moment you've been planning, when you'll pull the trigger. That world defeats you. You put the gun back in the drawer. You'll have to find another way.

My chronic feelings of emptiness and boredom came from the fact that I was living a life based on my incapacities, which were numerous.

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.

I am not a nurse escorting six lunatics to the ice cream parlor.

It's important to cultivate detachment. One way to do this is to practice imagining yourself dead, or in the process of dying. If there's a window, you must imagine your body falling out the window. If there's a knife, you must imagine the knife piercing your skin. If there's a train coming, you must imagine your torso flattened under its wheels. These exercises are necessary to achieving the proper distance.

Was insanity just a matter of dropping the act?

An observer can't tell if a person is silent and still because inner life has stalled or because inner life is transfixingly busy.