The weather of Depression is unmodulated, its light a brownout.

The writer's duty is to keep on writing.

For a person whose sole burning ambition is to write - like myself - college is useless beyond the Sophomore year.

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

What I really mean is that a great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading it.

Depression is a disorder of mood, so mysteriously painful and elusive in the way it becomes known to the self -- to the mediating intellect-- as to verge close to being beyond description. It thus remains nearly incomprehensible to those who have not experienced it in its extreme mode.

[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.