Every writer since the beginning of time, just like other people, has been afflicted by what a friend of mine calls

[However], the sufferer from depression has no option, and therefore finds himself, like a walking casualty of war, thrust into the most intolerable social and family situations. There he must ... present a face approximating the one associated with ordinary events and companionship. He must try to utter small talk and be responsive to questions, and knowingly nod, and frown and, God help him, even smile.

A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading.

Let's face it, writing is hell.

my brain had begun to endure its familiar siege: panic and dislocation, and a sense that my thought processes were being engulfed by a toxic and unnameable tide that obliterated any enjoyable response to the living world.

We would have to settle for the elegant goal of becoming ourselves.

It's fine therapy for people who are perpetually scared of nameless threats as I am most of the time — for jittery people.