quotations about depression
The term clinical depression finds its way into too many conversations these days. One has a sense that a catastrophe has occurred in the psychic landscape.
LEONARD COHEN
International Herald Tribune, Nov. 4, 1988
Noble deeds and hot baths are the best cures for depression.
DODIE SMITH
I Capture the Castle
They come upon me all silent and menacing like Pinkerton Detectives, and they flank me--Depression on my left, Loneliness on my right. They don't need to show me their badges. I know these guys very well. We've been playing a cat-and-mouse game for years now. Though I admit that I am surprised to meet them in this elegant Italian garden at dusk.
ELIZABETH GILBERT
Eat, Pray, Love
Others imply that they know what it is like to be depressed because they have gone through a divorce, lost a job, or broken up with someone. But these experiences carry with them feelings. Depression, instead, is flat, hollow, and unendurable. It is also tiresome. People cannot abide being around you when you are depressed. They might think that they ought to, and they might even try, but you know and they know that you are tedious beyond belief: you are irritable and paranoid and humorless and lifeless and critical and demanding and no reassurance is ever enough. You're frightened, and you're frightening, and you're "not at all like yourself but will be soon," but you know you won't.
KAY REDFIELD JAMISON
An Unquiet Mind
Nailing down a definition of depression is like trying to nail psychological Jell-O to a wall.
DAVID B. BIEBEL & HAROLD G. KOENIG
New Light on Depression
Depression is worse than the grave
Better to die for a noble cause
Than to live and die a slave
NENEH CHERRY
"Poem Daddy (Interlude)", Broken Politics
According to a recent study, depression is described as being the disease most destructive to humankind, largely because of the devastation it wreaks on our lives.... Yes, we could set up our minds to ignore our feelings and barricade ourselves from the winds and dust of the brain pattern. And we could become like robots, refusing to consider the passion and joys that could be ours. But then, we also might as well be dead.
FRANK LAWLIS
The Stress Answer: Train Your Brain to Conquer Depression and Anxiety in 45 Days
In the lives of the saddest of us, there are bright days like this, when we feel as if we could take the great world in our arms and kiss it. Then come the gloomy hours, when the fire will neither burn on our hearths nor in our hearts; and all without and within is dismal, cold, and dark. Believe me, every heart has its secret sorrows, which the world knows not, and oftentimes we call a man cold, when he is only sad.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Hyperion
I inherited depression from my mother’s side of the family. Her father committed suicide. She committed suicide the year before I went to the moon.
BUZZ ALDRIN
New York Times, Jun. 15, 2009
If depression is creeping up and must be faced, learn something about the nature of the beast: You may escape without a mauling.
R.W. SHEPHERD
Vogue magazine, July 1978
The difference between everyday sadness and clinical depression can now be seen using new computer imaging technology, the PET scan, using colors to show the metabolism and blood flow in the brain.... We say when a person is depressed that their mood is blue. If you look at the PET scan of a person who's depressed, we can see it in terms of colors. If you look at the brain of a person who's normal, you will see reds and greens and yellows and some areas of blue. If you look at the brain of a person who's in a depression on a PET scan, you will see almost all blue and green. In other words, the person is literally blue.
ROD STEIGER & JAN FAWCETT
Voices of an Illness