“Life was very good to me. Yet I also recall an increasing frequency of deep, inner pain. I remember days of depression. I can still feel the loneliness and the struggle. What was happening? I had every material thing and achieved all the success I could ask for. Yet I felt emotionally bankrupt.”

“Writing is the best anti-depressant.”

“If you are sitting in the dark (due to depression) go turn the light on. If you can’t find the light switch, seek the help of someone who can.”

“Imagining the future is a kind of nostalgia”

“When I was young I was depressed all the time. But suicide no longer seemed a possibility in my life. At my age there was very little left to kill. It was good to be old, no matter what they said. It was reasonable that a man had to be at least 50 years old before he could write with anything like clarity.”

“Being depressed means you are trying to see a colorful world through gray filtered eyes”

“My sanity felt like it was hanging over a pit, dangling on a frayed string that I knew was going to break – it was only a matter of when.”