"The orange turns to dull bronze light and continues to show what it has shown all day long, but now it seems to show it without enthusiasm. Across those dry hills, within those little houses in the distance are people who've been there all day long, going about the business of the day, who now find nothing unusual or different in this strange darkening landscape, as we do. If we were to come upon them early in the day they might be curious about us and what we're here for. but now in the evening they'd just resent our presence. The workday is over. It's time for supper and family and relaxation and turning inward at home. We ride unnoticed down this empty highway through this strange country I've never seen before, and now a heavy feeling of isolation and loneliness becomes dominant and my spirits wane with the sun."

— Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values 🦚

"The minutes felt as long as years and I couldn't be in the sort of time that didn't move, that instead stood still and all I could think of was being allowed to die, being allowed to cut the thread of time forever."

— Linda Bostr?m Knausg?rd 🦚

"There is a difference between depression and sadness. I am happy to be sad."

— Amanda Mosher, Better to be able to love than to be loveable 🦚

"Repeated positive interpretations of one's negative experiences are the greatest medicines for stress and depression."

— 🦚

"Before the state of stress or depression comes some frequent negative interpretations of one's experiences."

— 🦚

"Sometimes I Curse My Love Affair with Life"

— Damond Jiniya 🦚

"When you are depressed you feel alone, and that no one is going through quite what you are going through. You are so scared of appearing in any way mad you internalise everything, and you are so scared that people will alienate you further you clam up and dont speak about it, which is a shame, as speaking about it helps."

— Matt Haig, Reasons to Stay Alive 🦚

"Why not risk your life, if you don't want to live anyway? Why not risk your life if you'll never be happy no matter what you do?"

— Cassandra Clare, City of Glass 🦚

"How confusing to live in the shadow of a shadow."

— Gillian Flynn, Sharp Objects 🦚

"Out of the seven billion people sharing the planet with her, not one of them knew what was going through her head. Not one of them knew she was lost. Not one of them asked."

— Amy Zhang 🦚

"There's memory clutter, which reminds you of an important person, achievement, or event from your past. I think memory clutter often gathers in the homes of people with some degree of depression. And then there's "I might need it one day clutter, in which people hang on to stuff in anticipation of an imagined future. Among these folks, I've noticed a recurring theme of anxiety...Maybe it's possible that the stuff we own and obsess over is the physical manifestation of the mental health issues that challenge our minds. --p29."

— Peter Walsh 🦚

"It was clear to her now, Happiness was a seductive illusion. No one as fucked up as her deserved one drop of joy. But oh god was it delicious when it fell into her lap for a little while. (Such a pretty face) she muses (with such a bruised and battered soul). When the dawn of a promise fades into the dusk of reality, all that remains is the nightmare. Sweet, sweet loneliness. Shadows come to play and prey on her beaten mind. Her lovely little dreams of poison."

— Solange nicole, Dreams of Poison 🦚

"You have a light in you thats almost blinding. But in me theres only darkness. Sometimes I think its like the darkness that infected you that night in the inn when you began to cry and to tremble. You were so helpless, so unprepared for it. I try to keep the darkness from you because I need your light. I need it desperately, but you dont need the darkness."

— Anne Rice, The Vampire Lestat 🦚

"I couldn't even muster the enthusiasm to hate myself anymore."

— Allie Brosh, Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened 🦚

"Procrastination is the best friend of depression."

— Debasish Mridha 🦚

"Slowly, my feelings started to shrivel up. The few that managed to survive the constant beatings staggered around like wounded baby deer, just biding their time until they could die and join all the other carcasses strewn across the wasteland of my soul."

— Allie Brosh, Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened 🦚

"Depression means self-loathing, self-disgust, and the kind of emotional numbness that feels like psychic death."

— William Deresiewicz, Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life 🦚

"I lost myself in the burden of trying to be your savior."

— Alexandria Hampton 🦚

"Life itself seemed so alarmingly exigent, to require so much of the self. It was too difficult to remember and think and express and understand - all things I needed to be able to do to talk. To keep my face animated at the same time was insult added to injury. It was like trying to cook and roller-skate and sing and type all at once."

— Andrew Solomon, The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression 🦚

"I always fill the chat box, almost every day, and end up deleting my heart."

— Esteban Urayon 🦚