“
The sun stopped shining for me is all. The whole story is: I am sad. I am sad all the time and the sadness is so heavy that I can't get away from it. Not ever.
”
”
Nina LaCour (Hold Still)
“
La tristesse durera toujours.
[The sadness will last forever.]
”
”
Vincent van Gogh
“
He wipes tears off my face and then snot. He uses his hands. He loves me that much.
”
”
Nina LaCour (Hold Still)
“
The sun stopped shining for me is all.
”
”
Nina LaCour (Hold Still)
“
There is a gentrification that is happening to cities, and there is a gentrification that is happening to the emotions too, with a similarly homogenising, whitening, deadening effect. Amidst the glossiness of late capitalism, we are fed the notion that all difficult feeling - depression, anxiety, loneliness, rage - are simply a consequence of unsettled chemistry, a problem to be fixed, rather than a response to structural injustice or, on the other hand, to the native texture of embodiment, of doing time, as David Wojnarowicz memorably put it, in a rented body, with all the attendant grief and frustration that entails.
”
”
Olivia Laing (The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone)
“
Once upon a time, there was a naïve and innocent girl who thought she could tame the beast and live happily ever after. But the beast did not want to be tamed, for he was a beast and beasts care not for such things, and the girl died along with her dreams.
From childhood's grave sprang a young woman, jaded before her years, who knew that beasts could wear the skins of men, and that evil could exist in sunlight, as well as darkness.
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
”
”
Nenia Campbell (Terrorscape (Horrorscape, #3))
“
Loneliness is difficult to confess; difficult too to categorise. Like depression, a state with which it often intersects, it can run deep in the fabric of a person, as much a part of one’s being as laughing easily or having red hair.
”
”
Olivia Laing (The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone)
“
depressing. I asked myself: ‘Where is God?’ I came to detest the sanctimonious attitude of people toward violence, always saying ‘it’s God’s will’.
”
”
Anton Szandor LaVey (The Satanic Bible)
“
Capitalist realism insists on treating mental health as if it were a natural fact, like weather (but, then again, weather is no longer a natural fact so much as a political-economic effect). In the 1960s and 1970s, radical theory and politics (Laing, Foucault, Deleuze and Guattari, etc.) coalesced around extreme mental conditions such as schizophrenia, arguing, for instance, that madness was not a natural, but a political, category. But what is needed now is a politicization of much more common disorders. Indeed, it is their very commonness which is the issue: in Britain, depression is now the condition that is most treated by the NHS. In his book The Selfish Capitalist, Oliver James has convincingly posited a correlation between rising rates of mental distress and the neoliberal mode of capitalism practiced in countries like Britain, the USA and Australia. In line with James’s claims, I want to argue that it is necessary to reframe the growing problem of stress (and distress) in capitalist societies. Instead of treating it as incumbent on individuals to resolve their own psychological distress, instead, that is, of accepting the vast privatization of stress that has taken place over the last thirty years, we need to ask: how has it become acceptable that so many people, and especially so many young people, are ill?
”
”
Mark Fisher (Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative?)
“
Then, without really realizing it, I start to think of one thing I did wrong for each tree I look at. Wide oak - I didn't tell anyone when Ingrid cut herself. Baby oak - the time I told her I was getting sick of hearing about Jayson's arms and his blue shirt. Tall tree with bare branches - the way I would leave when she got depressed and stopped talking. I should have stayed. I should have just sat quietly , so she knew I was with her.
”
”
Nina LaCour (Hold Still)
“
R. D. Laing once said there are three things human beings are afraid of: death, other people, and their own minds.
”
”
Michael Pollan (How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence)
“
Pero, en general, la humanidad me pareció siempre detestable. No tengo inconvenientes en manifestar que a veces me impedía comer en todo el día o me impedía pintar durante una semana el haber observado un rasgo; es increíble hasta qué punto la codicia, la envidia, la petulancia, la grosería, la avidez y, en general, todo ese conjunto de atributos que forman la condición humana pueden verse en una cara, en una manera de caminar, en una mirada. Me parece natural que después de un encuentro así uno no tenga ganas de comer, de pintar, ni aun de vivir.
”
”
Ernesto Sabato (El túnel)
“
What is there to see if I go outside? Don't tell me. I know. I can see other people. I don't want to see other people. They look awful. The men look like slobs and the women look like men. The men have mush faces framed by long hair and the women have big noses, big jaws, big heads, and stick-like bodies. That depresses me. Its no fun to people-watch anymore because there's so little variety in types.
You say it's good to get a change of scenery. What scenery? New buildings? New cars? New freeways? New shopping malls? Go to the woods or a park? I saw a tree once. The new ones look the same, which is fine. I even remember what the old ones look like. My memory isn't that short. But it's not worth going to see a squirrel grab a nut, or fish swimming around in a big tank if I must put up with the ugly contemporary human pollution that accompanies each excursion. The squirrel may enliven me and remind me of better vistas but the price in social interaction isn't worth it. If, on my way to visit the squirrel, I encounter a single person who gains stimulation by seeing me, I feel like I have given more than I've received and I get sore.
If every time I go somewhere to see a fish swimming, I become someone else's stimulation, I feel shortchanged. I'll buy my own fish and watch it swim. Then, I can watch the fish, the fish can watch me, we can be friends, and nobody else interferes with the interaction, like trying to hear what the fish and I are talking about. I won't have to get dressed a certain way to visit the fish. I needn't dress the way my pride dictates, because who's going to see me? I needn't wear any pants. The fish doesn't care. He doesn't read the tabloids. But, if I go out to see a fish other than my own, I'm right back where I started: entertaining others, which is more depleting than visiting the new fish is entertaining.
Maybe I should go to a coffee house. I find no stimulation in watching ordinary people trying to put the make on other uninteresting people. I can fix my own cup of coffee and not have to look at or talk to other people. No matter where I go, I stimulate others, and have been doing so all my life. It used to be I'd sometimes get stimulated back.
”
”
Anton Szandor LaVey
“
Amidst the glossiness of late capitalism, we are fed the notion that all difficult feelings – depression, anxiety, loneliness, rage – are simply a consequence of unsettled chemistry, a problem to be fixed, rather than a response to structural injustice or, on the other hand, to the native texture of embodiment, of doing time, as David Wojnarowicz memorably put it, in a rented body, with all the attendant grief and frustration that entails. I
”
”
Olivia Laing (The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone)
“
Things I need: The Californian sunshine. A more convincing smile.
”
”
Nina LaCour (We Are Okay)
“
The surest sign that you’re working with the life-affirming kind of discipline, rather than the spirit-depressing kind, is that you don’t complain very much about doing what it takes.
”
”
Danielle LaPorte (The Desire Map: A Guide to Creating Goals with Soul)
“
L.A. kills people.' Jacaranda said. 'You're lucky you're leaving. You'll be able to write.'
She looked paler, going through another depression, smoking in bed in her lilac room. The walls were the color of her veins. She was getting too thin, even for the modeling. . .Jacaranda died last winter when the flowering trees were bare. You couldn't even tell which ones once cried the purple blossoms she named herself after.
”
”
Francesca Lia Block (Girl Goddess #9: Nine Stories)
“
Sufría menos con un dolor real y físico que con el temor de agonía de que volviera la conciencia y me arrebataran la copa del olvido que la muerte me brindaba.
”
”
Hermann Hesse (Gertrude)
“
How should followers of Jesus relate to people of other religions? Christianity has a nauseating, infuriating, depressing record when it comes to encountering people of other religions. Jesus accepted everyone and so should we.
”
”
Tim LaHaye (Are We Living in the End Times?: Curretn Events Foretold in Scripture... and What They Mean)
“
(yesterday)
From the terrace of the Flore, I see a woman sitting on the windowsill of the bookstore La Hune; she is holding a glass in one hand, apparently bored; the whole room behind her is filled with men, their backs to me. A cocktail party.
May cocktails. A sad, depressing sensation of a seasonal and social stereotype. What comes to my mind is that maman is no longer here and life, stupid life, continues.
”
”
Roland Barthes (Mourning Diary: October 26, 1977–September 15, 1979)
“
Whenever Ingrid and I got out of the suburbs, into Berkeley or San Francisco, and saw how other people lived, Ingrid would cry at the smallest of things- a little boy walking home by himself, a discarded cardboard sign saying HUNGRY PLEASE HELP. She would snap a picture, and by the time she lowered her camera, tears would already be falling. I always felt kind of guilty that I didn't feel as sad as she did, but now, watching Dylan, I think that's probably a good thing. I mean, you see a million terrible things every day, on the news and in the paper, and in real life. I'm not saying that it's stupid to feel sad, just that it would be impossible to let everything get to you and still get some sleep at night.
”
”
Nina LaCour (Hold Still)
“
Genius' was a word loosely used by expatriot Americans in Paris and Rome, between the Versailles Peace treaty and the Depression, to cover all varieties of artistic, literary and musical experimentalism. A useful and readable history of the literary Thirties is Geniuses Together by Kay Boyle-Joyce, Hemingway, Scott Fitzgerald, Pound, Eliot and the rest. They all became famous figures but too many of them developed defects of character-ambition, meanness, boastfulness, cowardice or inhumanity-that defrauded their early genius. Experimentalism is a quality alien to genius. It implies doubt, hope, uncertainty, the need for group reassurance; whereas genius works alone, in confidence of a foreknown result. Experiments are useful as a demonstration of how not to write, paint or compose if one's interest lies in durable rather than fashionable results; but since far more self-styled artists are interested in frissons á la mode rather than in truth, it is foolish to protest. Experimentalism means variation on the theme of other people's uncertainties.
”
”
Robert Graves
“
What is worse is that one wonders how, to-morrow, one will find strength enough to go on doing what one has been doing the day before, and for so much too long before that, – strength for the whole mad business, for a thousand and one vain projects: attempts to escape crushing necessity; attempts which are always stillborn....
”
”
Louis-Ferdinand Céline (Voyage au bout de la nuit)
“
For Alex to be enveloped into one of New York State's blue-ribbon families helped put to bed a lifetime of doubts and depression about his own dubious birthright.
”
”
Melissa de la Cruz (Alex and Eliza (Alex & Eliza, #1))
“
From baby teeth to virginity, to live is to regularly suffer loss. However, I scarcely expected to love everything I've ever loved in a single moment.
”
”
Eric LaRocca (We Can Never Leave This Place)
“
Quoi qu'on lise sur le cancer (brochures, sites Internet ou autres), on trouvera toujours la dépression parmi les effets secondaires. Pourtant, le dépression n'est pas un effet secondaire du cancer. C'est mourir qui provoque la dépression (et le cancer, et à peu près tout, d'ailleurs).
”
”
John Green (The Fault in Our Stars)
“
Aunt Léonie who, after the death of her husband, my Uncle Octave, no longer wished to leave, first Combray, then within Combray her house, then her bedroom, then her bed and no longer 'came down', always lying in an uncertain state of grief, physical debility, illness, obsession and piety.
”
”
Marcel Proust (Swann’s Way (In Search of Lost Time, #1))
“
La depressione è un’incrinatura dell’amore. Per essere capaci di amare dobbiamo essere capaci di disperarci per ciò che perdiamo e la depressione è il meccanismo con cui esprimiamo questa disperazione. Quando sopravviene, distrugge il nostro sé e finisce per annullare la capacità di donare e di ricevere affetto. È la solitudine interiore, che si manifesta e annienta non solo il legame con gli altri, ma anche la capacità di restare serenamente soli con se stessi.
”
”
Andrew Solomon (The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression)
“
But the moment I realized that Pomiane was not just sympathetic but deeply on my side came in his recipe for Bœuf à la Ficelle (top rump suspended in boiling water by a string). When it is done, you are told to: ‘Lift the beef from the saucepan and remove the string. The meat is grey outside and not very appetizing. At this moment you may feel a little depressed.’ Isn’t that one of the most cheering and pedant-friendly lines a cook ever wrote? ‘You may feel a little depressed.
”
”
Julian Barnes (The Pedant in the Kitchen)
“
How I wish to fly with the geese away from dreary November days, the "freeze-up," and cruel winter. Away from loneliness, isolation, and anxiety bred by blizzards. Most every local person I've talked to grudgingly admits to an autumn apprehension. It is part and parcel of an Adirondacker's psychological makeup. The geese contaminate us with this strange depression on their southbound flight and cure us with their northbound. In between, we try to tolerate winter, each in his or her own way.
”
”
Anne LaBastille (Woodswoman I: Living Alone in the Adirondack Wilderness)
“
L’opposto della depressione non è la felicità, ma la vitalità, e la mia vita, mentre scrivo, è pregna di vitalità anche quando è triste. Un giorno o l’altro, il prossimo anno, mi capiterà di svegliarmi nuovamente privo di senno: è improbabile che mi mantenga stabile per sempre. Nel frattempo, però, ho scoperto quella che si chiama anima, una parte di me che non avrei mai immaginato esistesse prima che, un giorno di sette anni fa, l’inferno mi facesse una visita inaspettata. È una scoperta preziosa.
”
”
Andrew Solomon (The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression)
“
Today I finally recognise the mistake that almost became my downfall: I expected too much out of life. I thought it would owe me happiness and cheerfulness. In fact, life offers neither good nor evil. Happiness is a fruit you cultivate and harvest inside your soul. You can not gain it from the outside. Why should I be fretful like a child that has got no gift? I have years ahead to be happy.
”
”
Shan Sa (Porte de la Paix céleste)
“
Ma famille incarne ce que la joie a de plus bruyant, de plus spectaculaire, l’écho inlassable des morts, et le retentissement du désastre.
Aujourd’hui je sais aussi qu’elle illustre, comme tant d’autres familles, le pouvoir de destruction du verbe, et celui du silence.
”
”
Delphine de Vigan (Rien ne s'oppose à la nuit)
“
Incapace com'ero di nutrire un briciolo di fiducia nella mia facoltà di parlare e d'agire come un essere umano, custodivo rinchiuse nel petto le mie angosce solitarie. Tenevo nascoste l'agitazione e la malinconia, preoccupandomi d'evitare che avesse a trapelarne qualche traccia.
”
”
Osamu Dazai (No Longer Human(인간실격))
“
Maybe he was broken. Like a clock that always stops when it shouldn't, or a cracked teacup that spills anything poured inside.
Something was broken inside him, causing his gears to work incorrectly, and that's why he could never seem to do anything right. Useless. Garbage, to be thrown away.
”
”
LaKaysha Stenersen (Echoes of Mercy)
“
Cuando alguien arma un proyecto, ¿qué hace? Simple... Pone algo entre la muerte y él: "Hoy voy a hacer tal cosa, mañana voy a hacer tal otra". Y esto es algo fundamental. Porque si no hiciera nada tendría que pensar todo el tiempo en que se va a morir. Por eso en las personas que se quedan sin proyectos aparece la depresión.
”
”
Gabriel Rolón (Historias de diván: Ocho relatos de vida)
“
Sin embargo, era cierto que por primera vez comprendió que las personas en las que había confiado podían traicionarlo algún día, y que por decepcionante que pudiera ser, también era inevitable, y la vida seguiría impulsándolo sin cesar hacia delante, porque, aunque todos le fallaran, siempre habría al menos una persona que no lo haría.
”
”
Hanya Yanagihara (A Little Life)
“
Cliché shouters, sloganeers, fashion-conscious pseudoidealists. Locusts attacking social causes with the wrong information and bogus solutions, their one legit gripe--the Sleepy Lagoon case--almost blown through guilt by association: fellow travelers soliciting actual Party members for picketing and leaflet distribution, nearly discrediting everything the Sleepy Lagoon Defense Committee said and did. Hollywood writers and actors and hangers-on spouting cheap trauma, Pinko platitudes and guilt over raking in big money during the Depression, then penancing the bucks out to spurious leftist causes. People led to Lesnick's couch by their promiscuity and dipshit politics.
”
”
James Ellroy (The Big Nowhere (L.A. Quartet, #2))
“
Je n'ai pas demandé la vie, je n'en veux plus. Maintenant j'ai le droit de choisir.
”
”
Valérie Valère (Le Pavillon des enfants fous)
“
Vivre sans lecture c'est dangereux, il faut se contenter de la vie, ça peut amener à prendre des risques.
”
”
Michel Houellebecq (Platform)
“
Me esfuerzo cada mañana en eclipsar el dolor con una pátina de apatía, pero esta se desquebraja como la pintura de un viejo muro un día de tormenta.
”
”
Lucía Arca Sancho-Arroyo (Oh My Gothess)
“
Debes creerme Paula: la intemporalidad es una carga mayor que la del tiempo terrenal. No sabes qué abrumador es cargar con algo que no tiene peso.
”
”
María Granata (Los viernes de la eternidad)
“
Estoy en una niebla y la mitad del tiempo ni siquiera me doy cuenta de ello.
”
”
Tarryn Fisher (Mud Vein)
“
On voulait mourir; on ne voulait pas étouffer; la maladie dégoûte de la mort; on veut guérir, ce qui est une manière de vouloir vivre.
”
”
Marguerite Yourcenar (Memoirs of Hadrian)
“
Io sono il presente, ma so che anch'io me ne andrò. L'instante sublime, la fiamma che consuma arriva e subito scompare: sabbie mobili, semore. E io non voglio morire.
”
”
Sylvia Plath (The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath)
“
Loneliness is difficult to confess; difficult too to categorise. Like depression, a state with which it often intersects, it can run deep in the fabric of a person, as much a part of one's being as laughing easily or having red hair. Then again, it can be transient, lapping in and out in reaction to external circumstance, like the loneliness that follows on the heels of a bereavement, break-up, or change in social circles.
”
”
Olivia Laing (The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone)
“
Something in him screamed for someone to notice him, someone to see him for what he was, what he needed. Someone to take him aside and remind him that he was still loved--to show him where he needed correction. To see him.
”
”
LaKaysha Stenersen (Strength in Measure)
“
I fucking love LA (dog birthday parties! spiritual healers on every corner! unironic oxygen bars!). You might not think so because I’m a misanthropic depressed person with menopause acne whose hips are too wide for every single restaurant chair in Silverlake, but you would be wrong. I’m a Fat Bitch from the Middle West and I love accidentally running into minor celebrities with my cart in the wheatgrass aisle at the Rock ’N Roll Ralph’s on Sunset.
”
”
Samantha Irby (Wow, No Thank You.)
“
People didn't want to think about boarding schools--the era of forced assimilation was supposed to be over. But then again, kids from chaotic families didn't get to school, or get sleep, or real food, or homework help. And they'd never get out of the chaos--whatever brand of chaos, from addictions to depression to failing health--unless they got to school. To succeed in school, kids had to attend regularly, eat regularly, sleep regularly, and study regularly. Maybe the boarding schools of the earliest days had stripped away culture from the vulnerable, had left adults with little understanding of how to give love or parent, but what now? Kids needed some intervention, but not the wrenching away of foster families and outside adoptions.
”
”
Louise Erdrich (LaRose)
“
Ho talmente riempito la mia riserva di giorni e maschere che adesso posso e devo passare gli anni a pescare, a tirar su mostri dagli occhi di perla, coriacei, squamosi e con barbe marine, sommersi da lungo tempo nel mar dei Sargassi della mia immaginazione.
”
”
Sylvia Plath (The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath)
“
J'aurai voulu avoir plein d'amis tout en conservant ma solitude. Cela m'est apparu comme une impossibilité psychologique. Alors j'ai choisi la solitude. Je pourrai résister à tout, eux, ils auront toujours besoin de quelqu'un, mais moi, non, j'aurai mes propres pensées.
”
”
Valérie Valère (Le Pavillon des enfants fous)
“
The parking lot is hidden by thickets of scrub and at a field's distance from the mission compound. Yes, you can imagine the solitude of the landscape; you can imagine the hardness of the life. Perhaps I was expecting too much. La Purísima reminds me of nothing so much as those churches the Soviet government used to ridicule by making of them shrines to history. La Purísima is Williamsburg and Sutter's Fort and worse. The state's [California's] insistence that here are matters only of fact is depressing, the triumph of history over memory.
”
”
Richard Rodríguez (Days of Obligation: An Argument With My Mexican Father)
“
Randolph Maddix, a schizophrenic who lived at a private home for the mentally ill in Brooklyn, was often left alone to suffer seizures, his body crumpling to the floor of his squalid room. The home, Seaport Manor, is responsible for 325 starkly ill people, yet many of its workers could barely qualify for fast-food jobs. So it was no surprise that Mr. Maddix, 51, was dead for more than 12 hours before an aide finally checked on him. His back, curled and stiff with rigor mortis, had to be broken to fit him into a body bag.” THE NEW YORK TIMES April 28, 2002
”
”
Victor LaValle (The Devil in Silver)
“
Quando infine trovi qualcuno in cui senti di poter riversare la tua anima, ti blocchi di colpo davanti alle tue stesse parole - le hai tenute dentro così a lungo, contratte nel buio, che sono ormai sbiadite, brutte, banali, fiacche. Sì, c'è l'allegria, l'autorealizzazione, lo stare insieme: ma la solitudine dell'anima, nella sua spaventosa consapevolezza, è insopportabile, soverchiante.
”
”
Sylvia Plath (The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath)
“
« C’hai ragione, è stupido prendere delle medicine che dovrebbero aiutare le persone a non essere depresse e invece le fa ingrassare, perché essere grassi è un sacco deprimente.» Scossi la testa. Che razza di idiozia poteva spingere qualcuno a mettere la propria vanità al di sopra della propria salute mentale? E che razza di idiota avrebbe potuto avallare una simile scelta? Eppure mi faceva piacere che Darian la pensasse a quel modo. Accidentale o no, era la prima volta che qualcuno mi riconosceva la possibilità di essere frivolo e sciocco come qualsiasi altro individuo. Che mi riconosceva il diritto a non essere grato per il semplice fatto di passare da un giorno all’altro come un gonfio e vacuo zombi. «Allora siamo tutti e due superficiali e ci meritiamo a vicenda,» dissi.
”
”
Alexis Hall (Glitterland (Spires, #1))
“
And this pleasure, different from every other, had in the end created in him a need of her, which she alone, by her presence or by her letters, could assuage, almost as disinterested, almost as artistic, as perverse as another need which characterised this new period in Swann's life, where the sereness, the depression of the preceding years had been followed by a sort of spiritual superabundance, without his knowing to what he owed this unlooked-for enrichment of his life, any more than a person in delicate health who from a certain moment grows stronger, puts on flesh, and seems for a time to be on the road to a complete recovery: - this other need, which, too, developed in him independently of the visible, material world, was the need to listen to music and to learn to know it.
”
”
Marcel Proust (Swann’s Way (In Search of Lost Time, #1))
“
Mais quel crime ai-je donc commis ? Ai-je tué quelqu'un et ensuite perdu la mémoire ? Ai-je tué, volé ? Non, j’ai fait un choix. Il ne les concerne pas, ce n’est pas eux qui en souffrent, je suis inoffensive. Je les déteste ceux qui disent que je leur fais du mal en me laissant mourir. Ils ne peuvent pas savoir, je ne leur dirai pas, d'ailleurs ils ne m'aiment plus, ce n'est pas ainsi qu'on aime.
”
”
Valérie Valère (Le Pavillon des enfants fous)
“
Dicen que la depresión te hace ver todo de una forma negativa. Yo no estoy de acuerdo. La depresión te hace ver las cosas como son. Hace que te quites la venda de los ojos y voltees a tú alrededor para ver el mundo como en realidad es: cruel, duro e injusto. Te hace ver a las personas como son en realidad- estúpidas, superficiales y egoístas. Todo ese ridículo optimismo, todo ese ''Carpe diem'' y ''la vida es lo que tú haces de ella''. Palabras. Solo palabras vacías en un intento para darle significado a una existencia que es condenada e inútil a la vez.
”
”
Tabitha Suzuma (A Voice in the Distance (Flynn Laukonen, #2))
“
The night was blustery and raw, with a chill wet wind blowing down the avenues, and when Rose and I met Françoise and her son and a friend at La Lorraine, a glittering brassiere not far from L'Étoile, rain was descending from the heavens in torrents. Someone in the group, sensing my state of mind, apologized for the evil night, but I recall thinking that even if this were one of those warmly scented and passionate evenings for which Paris is celebrated I would respond like the zombie I had become. The weather of depression is unmodulated, its light a brownout.
”
”
William Styron (Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness)
“
These narratives are interesting in and of themselves, but Nelson isn’t just airing her feelings out. She’s bent on using these experiences as ways of prying the culture open, of investigating what it is that’s being so avidly defended and policed. Binaries, mostly: the overwhelming need, to which the left is no more immune than the right, for categories to remain pure and unpolluted. Gay people marrying or becoming pregnant, individuals migrating from one gender to another, let alone refusing to commit to either, occasions immense turbulence in thought systems that depend upon orderly separation and partition, which is part of the reason that the trans-rights movement has proved so depressingly threatening to certain quarters of feminist thought.
”
”
Olivia Laing (Funny Weather: Art in an Emergency)
“
In New York, Italian Americans became symbols of success; one of these, the half-Jewish Fiorello LaGuardia, represented the state as a Republican in Congress. Another proud group were his cousins, the Jews, both the older German Jews and the newer East European Jews. Jews at the time had a general belief in charity and taking care of one another: “All Israel is responsible for one another.” In addition, they were aware of a specific history in New York; Peter Stuyvesant had asked the Dutch West India Company to ban Jewish settlement, but the company had allowed Jews to stay as long as the Jewish poor “be supported by their own nation.” The colonial Jews had pledged that they would, and the commitment was still alive. As late as the 1910s, philanthropist Jacob Schiff said that “a Jew would rather cut his hand off than apply for relief from non-Jewish sources.
”
”
Amity Shlaes (The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression)
“
Only an hour in, and already the first temptation: the warmth of my blankets and bed, my pillows and the fake-fur throw Hannah's mom left here after a weekend visit. They're all saying, Climb in. No one will know if you stay in bed all day. No one will know if you wear the same sweatpants for the entire month, if you eat every meal in front of television shows and use t-shirts as napkins. Go ahead and listen to that same song on repeat until its sound turns to nothing and you sleep the winter away.
I only have Mabel's visit to get through, and then all this could be mine. I could scroll through Twitter until my vision blurs and then collapse on my bed like an Oscar Wilde character. I could score myself a bottle of whiskey and let it make me glow, let all the room's edges go soft, let the memories out of their cages.
Maybe I would hear him sing again, if all else went quiet.
”
”
Nina LaCour (We Are Okay)
“
«Quando una persona non ha scopo per vivere, spegne lentamente la fiamma dell'animo. La riduce all'essenziale. Ma il fenomeno veramente strano è un altro. Questa persona avvertirà, pian piano, disgustoso piacere, forse l'unico che ne accompagni la squallida esistenza: il piacere della degradazione. Gusto di sporcizia, abbandono. E' difficile spiegarlo, ma l'ho notato nella gente che vive nei vicoli, nei fondaci. Come se, nell'infimo, si sentisse ad agio: senza responsabilità superiori.»
«Ma facciamo tutti così» mormorò lei. «Ci lasciamo andare. Perché nessuno decide della propria vita. Non sa scegliere. O non può. Scelgano gli altri, le cose, al posto nostro: questa pure non è degradazione? E però, se scegliessimo, che ne conseguirebbe? Avventure dolorose, angoscia».
«Ne varrebbe sempre la pena. Perché l'angoscia è segno di vita, è indizio che ancora si desidera futuro. E' quando s'è sicuri di non averlo che ci s'infetta».
”
”
Enzo Striano (Il resto di niente)
“
I dial her mum's number, then sit down cross-legged, facing the wall. When she comes on the line, she sounds uncertain, hesitant.
'Hey! Guess where I am?' I ask, my voice loud with false cheer.
'Rami told me. The Wellesly Hospital in Worthing. What's it like?'
'For a loony-bin it's actually quite decent,' I reply. 'I don't have Sky or an en-suite, and the menu isn't exactly à la carte, but you know...' I tail off.
There is a silence.
'Do you have your own room?' Jenna asks,
'Oh yeah, yeah. I have a lovely view of the sea between the bars of my window.'
She doesn't laugh.
'Have you started' -there is a pause as she searches for the right word -'threatment?'
'Yeah, yeah. We had group therapy today. Tomorrow we'll probably have art therapy - maybe I'll draw you a hourse and a garden. I know, perhaps they'll teach us to make baskets! Isn't that why they call us basket cases?'
'Flynn, stop,' Jennah softly implores.
'And we'll probably have music therapy the day after. Maybe I'll get to play the tambourine. Or the triangle. I've always wanted to play the triangle!'
'Flynn-'
'No, I'm serious! I'll ask for some manuscript paper and see if I can write a composition for tambourine and triangle. Then I can post if off to you to hand in for my next composition assignment.'
'Flynn, listen-'
'Hold on, hold on! I'm making a note to myself now: Find fellow insane musician and start composing the Flynn Laukonen Sonata for Tambourine and Triangle.'
'Flynn-'
'And then, when they let me out, if they ever let me out, perhaps you could pull a few strigns and organize for me and my tambourine buddy to give a recital. I'm not sure where though -how about the subway at Marble Arch tube? Nice and central, good acoustics-'
'What are the other people like?' Jennah cuts in, an edge to her voice. I notice she doesn't use the word patients. Clever Jennah. For a moment there you almost made me forget I was locked up in a mental institution.
'Round the bend, just like me,' I reply. 'I'm in excellent company. We'll be swapping suicide tips in no time at all!' I give a harsh laugh.
”
”
Tabitha Suzuma (A Voice in the Distance (Flynn Laukonen, #2))
“
I had no use for professions. Utterly none. There were accountants and engineers in the soup lines. In the world slump, professions were useless. You were free, therefore, to make something extraordinary of yourself. I might have said, if I hadn’t been excited to the point of sickness, that I didn’t ride around the city on the cars to make a buck or to be useful to the family, but to take a reading of this boring, depressed, ugly, endless, rotting city. I couldn’t have thought it then, but I now understand that my purpose was to interpret this place. Its power was tremendous. But so was mine, potentially. I refused absolutely to believe for a moment that people here were doing what they thought they were doing. Beneath the apparent life of these streets was their real life, beneath each face the real face, beneath each voice and its words the true tone and the real message. Of course, I wasn’t about to say such things. It was beyond me at that time to say them. I was, however, a high-toned kid, “La-di-dah,” my critical, satirical brother Albert called me. A high purpose in adolescence will expose you to that.
”
”
Saul Bellow (Collected Stories (Penguin Modern Classics))
“
My darling son: depression at your age is more common than you might think. I remember it very strongly in Minneapolis, Minnesota, when I was about twenty-six and felt like killing myself. I think the winter, the cold, the lack of sunshine, for us tropical creatures, is a trigger. And to tell you the truth, the idea that you might soon unpack your bags here, having chucked in all your European plans, makes your mother and me as happy as could be. You have more than earned the equivalent of any university 'degree' and you have used your time so well to educate yourself culturally and personally that if university bores you, it is only natural. Whatever you do from here on in, whether you write or don't write, whether you get a degree or not, whether you work for your mother, or at El Mundo, or at La Ines, or teaching at a high school, or giving lectures like Estanislao Zuleta, or as a psychoanalyst to your parents, sisters and relatives, or simply being Hector Abad Faciolince, will be fine. What matters is that you don't stop being what you have been up till now, a person, who simply by virtue of being the way you are, not for what you write or don't write, or for being brilliant or prominent, but just for being the way you are, has earned the affection, the respect, the acceptance, the trust, the love, of the vast majority of those who know you. So we want to keep seeing you in this way, not as a future great author, or journalist or communicator or professor or poet, but as the son, brother, relative, friend, humanist, who understands others and does not aspire to be understood. It does not matter what people think of you, and gaudy decoration doesn't matter, for those of us who know you are. For goodness' sake, dear Quinquin, how can you think 'we support you (...) because 'that boy could go far'? You have already gone very far, further than all our dreams, better than everything we imagined for any of our children. You should know very well that your mother's and my ambitions are not for glory, or for money, or even for happiness, that word that sounds so pretty but is attained so infrequently and for such short intervals (and maybe for that very reason is so valued), for all our children, but that they might at least achieve well-being, that more solid, more durable, more possible, more attainable word. We have often talked of the anguish of Carlos Castro Saavedra, Manuel Meija Vallejo, Rodrigo Arenas Betancourt, and so many quasi-geniuses we know. Or Sabato or Rulfo, or even Garcia Marquez. That does not matter. Remember Goethe: 'All theory (I would add, and all art), dear friend, is grey, but only the golden tree of life springs ever green.' What we want for you is to 'live'. And living means many better things than being famous, gaining qualifications or winning prizes. I think I too had boundless political ambitions when I was young and that's why I wasn't happy. I think I too had boundless political ambitions when I was young and that's why I wasn't happy. Only now, when all that has passed, have I felt really happy. And part of that happiness is Cecilia, you, and all my children and grandchildren. Only the memory of Marta Cecilia tarnishes it. I believe things are that simple, after having gone round and round in circles, complicating them so much. We should do away with this love for things as ethereal as fame, glory, success...
Well, my Quinquin, now you know what I think of you and your future. There's no need for you to worry. You are doing just fine and you'll do better, and when you get to my age or your grandfather's age and you can enjoy the scenery around La Ines that I intend to leave to all of you, with the sunshine, heat and lush greenery, and you'll see I was right. Don't stay there longer than you feel you can. If you want to come back I'll welcome you with open arms. And if you regret it and want to go back again, we can buy you another return flight. A kiss from your father.
”
”
Héctor Abad Faciolince
“
L'anorexie ne se résume pas à la volonté qu'ont certaines jeunes filles de ressembler aux mannequins, de plus en plus maigres il est vrai, qui envahissent les pages des magazines féminins. Le jeûne est une drogue puissante et peu onéreuse, on oublie souvent de le dire. L'état de dénutrition anesthésie la douleur, les émotions, les sentiments, et fonctionne, dans un premier temps comme une protection. L'anorexie restrictive est une addiction qui fait croire au contrôle alors qu'elle conduit le corps à sa destruction. J'ai eu la chance de rencontrer un médecin qui avait pris conscience de ça, à une époque où la plupart des anorexiques étaient enfermées entre quatre murs dans une pièce vide, avec pour seul horizon un contrat de poids.
”
”
Delphine de Vigan (Rien ne s'oppose à la nuit)
“
I don’t have an inspiring story of spiraling into a drug or alcohol addiction just for God to swoop in and save me. Instead, I self-medicated my depression by shopping. I’d spend to forget the pain, get the bill, freak out, then would subsequently go shop some more. At one point, my bill got too high, and I snapped. As I fought to get out from under the debt, I prayed for God to deliver me from the crushing anxiety I felt, which was brought on by the debt and which had added to the debt.
One morning God said to me, “Get help. Get well. Be healed.
”
”
Hew J. La France
“
The mainstream reader knows what he wants, and that is entertainment with a veneer of "the real," the challenge of a problem that he can solve, a soupcon of flattery, and a dollop of sex (just as long as it's grey). What such a reader doesn't want is an invitation to change his life, or a clear exposition of how rotten the system is, a la Henry Miller, because as my friend says, that is depressing. To write outside the mainstream, to diagnose the system's ills, to lay your heart and your spirit out on the page, is lonely work, but it feels lonelier still to think you did it all for nothing.
”
”
John Burnside
“
No permite que la conciencia de la ausencia del Maestro la llene. Porque intuye que si deja abrir las conpuertas ya no cesará ese nuevo dolor. Se instalará con ella para siempre. Y uno más en su cuerpo y en su mente tan frágiles sería demasiado.
”
”
Arabella Salaverry (El sitio de Ariadna)
“
Las horas se amalgaman. Son días. Se transforman los días en semanas para terminar consolidadas en un tiempo sin nombre. Masa difusa en la cual apenas respiro, a la espera del siguiente ensayo.
”
”
Arabella Salaverry (El sitio de Ariadna)
“
General Gerardo Machado always had an eye for the ladies and enjoyed partying at the swankiest nightclubs in Havana. For a time he even owned his own club, which was the place for his political hacks to be seen. Machado was frequently there in the company of some of the most enticing ladies in the country.
Through a combination of threats and bribery, he maintained control of the Army. In April of 1928 the Cuban Congress at the behest of Machado passed a law barring any presidential nominations by any party other than the Liberal, Conservative and Popular parties. Interestingly enough Machado declared himself the only legal candidate for those parties, and thus ran for a second term unopposed. Not only had he overspent money from the national treasury, but now he also alienated the Cuban public, who denounced him as an authoritarian nationalist and tyrant. Students, labor unions and intellectuals branded him an outright dictator. It was during this time that Marxist thinking was gaining strength throughout the world. The Communist philosophy was also becoming ever more popular among intellectuals, professors and students at the Universidad de La Havana. Realizing that he was now in danger of losing control, Machado made a power grab and declared Martial Law in Cuba. Intent on holding on to power, he became even more despotic than ever, creating a secret police known to the people as La Porra, meaning a big stick! As President, Machado became openly vindictive and did not hesitate to torture or even assassinate his foes in order to maintain tight sway over the Cuban population.
With the Great Depression of 1928, things only got worse. The economy, which was single-sided, was extremely dependent upon sugar. Poverty was widespread, and even necessities all but disappeared, leaving the Cuban people destitute and in misery.
”
”
Hank Bracker
“
Kuna siri ambayo wanaume hawaijui kuhusu wanawake. Wanawake wenye umri wa miaka kumi na nane hadi ishirini na mbili wana mapenzi ya kweli. Ishirini na mbili hadi ishirini na nne wana mawenge. Ishirini na nne hadi ishirini na saba wanajitambua. Ishirini na saba hadi thelathini wana hofu na mashaka mengi. Thelathini hadi thelathini na tano wana msongo wa mawazo. Thelathini na tano hadi arobaini na mbili ndoa nyingi huvunjika. Kwa hiyo, kuwa makini na wanawake na wanaume hasa wanawake na wanaume wa kundi la sita. Wanawake na wanaume hasa wanawake na wanaume wa kundi la sita, wengi wao wana DNA ya wapenzi wao wa zamani.
”
”
Enock Maregesi
“
Para que haya estabilidad (en la economía), debe haber alguien que la imponga, y solo puede haber un estabilizador a la vez”.
”
”
Charles P. Kindleberger (The World in Depression, 1929-1939)
“
I'm surrounded by people, yet I feel alone. Life can instill a sense of anxiety that submerges me to the darkest depths of an angry sea. Shimmers of light from above guide me to shore. Waves of love push me forward, my inner strength lifts me up, so I cam pull myself out.
”
”
L.A. Nettles (Butterflies)
“
Si puedes hablar de lo que te acongoja estás de suerte: eso significa que no es tan importante. Porque cuando el dolor cae sobre ti sin paliativos, lo primero que te arranca es la #Palabra.
”
”
Rosa Montero (La ridícula idea de no volver a verte)
“
In the spring of 1919 La Guardia found himself still way down on the seniority list in a Congress described by muckraking editor H. L. Mencken as "petty lawyers and small-town bankers" and a "depressing gang of incompetents." All La Guardia could do was rail at "outrages" in speeches that few people paid attention to and cast votes that changed nothing. Not even the "progressives," such as Robert La Follette and George Norris, took him seriously.
”
”
H. Paul Jeffers (The Napoleon of New York: Mayor Fiorello La Guardia)
“
Come erano tranquilli e beati gli altri, tutti gli altri! – tornava a ripetersi, riabbassata la testa sul piatto –. Come erano bravi a godersi la vita! La sua pasta si vede era diversa, inguaribilmente diversa, da quella della gente normale che una volta mangiato e bevuto non bada che a digerire. Accanirsi a mangiare e a bere a lui non sarebbe servito, no. (...) sarebbe ricascato in pieno a ruminare sulle sue solite cose, le vecchie e le nuove. Le sentiva in agguato, già pronte a saltargli addosso come prima, come sempre: e tutte quante insieme.
”
”
Giorgio Bassani (The Heron)
“
Anyway, she had had such moments before, and besides,
she was not killing herself because she was a sad, embittered
woman, constantly depressed. She had spent many afternoons
walking joyfully along the streets of Ljubljana or gazing—
from the window in her convent room—at the snow falling on
the small square with its statue of the poet. Once, for almost a
month, she had felt as if she were walking on air, all because a
complete stranger, in the middle of that very square, had given
her a flower.
She believed herself to be completely normal. Two very
simple reasons lay behind her decision to die, and she was sure
that, were she to leave a note explaining, many people would
agree with her.
The first reason: Everything in her life was the same and,
once her youth was gone, it would be downhill all the way,
with old age beginning to leave irreversible marks, the onset of
illness, the departure of friends. She would gain nothing by
continuing to live; indeed, the likelihood of suffering would
only increase.
The second reason was more philosophical: Veronika read
the newspapers, watched TV, and she was aware of what was
going on in the world. Everything was wrong, and she had no
way of putting things right—that gave her a sense of complete
powerlessness.
”
”
Paulo Coelho (Veronika Decide Morir: Una Novela Sobre La Locura)
“
I fell on top of her with complete disregard to her slight weight, reached for the nightstand, and shoved two mint gums into my mouth.
“There won’t be another time.” I rolled off her, my body sleek with sweat, my muscles calm for the first time in years.
“Sure, honey.” She plastered her tits to my arm. Beneath us, the sheets were soaked with everything we’d just done. “Just this once.”
But the temptation proved too much.
I ended up granting myself a free pass for the duration of our honeymoon. For an entire week, I fucked Dallas through her clothes at every opportunity.
And every night, I fucked her through a bedsheet, careful to always come on her face, tongue, and tits. I almost even fucked her bareback in the Louvre.
Then I ate her sweet little cunt at La Madeleine. A church of all places, because my troublemaker of a wife simply could not wait until we returned to the hotel.
She’d even begged me to finger her on the Dodo Manège. Which meant I also had to suck her tits under a coat I draped over her chest in the taxi back to the hotel.
The pattern was depressingly clear.
I married a woman with nymphomaniac tendencies and had zero desire to deprive her of what she wanted.
I was pussy-whipped. So pussy-whipped, I forgot to ask, to expect, to train her to return the favor.
I was so enamored with her cunt that I forgot it was a Venus flytrap, hungry for my sperm.
One thing was certain.
When we returned to U.S. soil, I needed to stay as far away from my wife as I possibly could. Being in close quarters with her would put me at a clear disadvantage in our psychological war.
It would take her a month. Two. Perhaps even an entire year. But I knew in my bones that she’d convince me to fuck her bareback. Filthy.
Until she filled to the brim with my cum.
Whatever Dallas Costa wanted—Dallas Costa got.
And what she wanted right now was my heir.(Chapter 31)
”
”
Parker S. Huntington (My Dark Romeo (Dark Prince Road, #1))
“
la solitudine è il mio Composizione chimica
”
”
Andre Verticchio
“
As an electrical being, it is important you maintain proper posture, an open chest and heart area to facilitate heart electromagnetic energy. You are less likely to be depressed when you keep your heart area open. People with heavy and dense negative energy look as though they are carrying a heavy backpack at all times. [253]
”
”
Grieg de la Houssaye (The Energy To Thrive: Discovering and Using Your Body’s Genius Capabilities.)
“
I don't want to know, I don't want to be seen. My resistance, my refusal to know some truth about myself brings on that paralysis, depression -- brings on the Coatlicue state. At first I feel exposed and opened to the depth of my dissatisfaction. Then I feel myself closing, hiding, holding myself together rather than allowing myself to fall apart.
”
”
Gloria E. Anzaldúa (Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza)
“
When is it best to give up on a major life goal? Early in my career, I always encouraged patients to keep trying, keep trying, don’t let your depression symptoms fool you into thinking you can’t succeed. Often that was good advice. Some applicants get into medical school the fourth time they apply. Some singers land a gig with the Grand Ole Opry after their fifth year in Nashville. But more become increasingly despondent as failure follows failure. Sometimes a five-year engagement turns into marriage. Sometimes staying another year in LA trying to break into film pays off. But not often. Sober experience combined with my growing evolutionary perspective to encourage respecting the meaning of my patients’ moods. As often as not, their symptoms seemed to arise from a deep recognition that some major life project was never going to work. She was glad he wanted to live with her, but it looks increasingly like he will never agree to get married. The boss is nice now and then and hints at promotions, but nothing will ever come of it. Hopes for cancer cures get aroused, but all treatments so far have failed. He has stayed off booze for two weeks, but a dozen previous vows to stay on the wagon have all ended in binges. Low mood is not always an emanation from a disordered brain; it can be a normal response to pursuing an unreachable goal.
”
”
Randolph M. Nesse (Good Reasons for Bad Feelings: Insights from the Frontier of Evolutionary Psychiatry)
“
Quand je refuse une sortie, car je ne le sens pas, que je ne me sens pas bien, il me pose souvent cette fameuse question : « Pourquoi tu n’es pas bien ? Quelle est la raison ? ».
Le problème, c’est qu’il n’y en a pas une seule bien distincte, je ne sais pas pourquoi je ne vais pas bien. Je fais vraiment de mon mieux pour rester sociale, mais je n’y arrive plus, et j’ai graduellement arrêté de vouloir essayer de lui expliquer. Je ne sais pas quoi lui dire de plus à part « Parfois, ça ne va pas, il n’y a pas de raison précise ou de solutions définies pour améliorer les circonstances, c’est tout. »
”
”
Charlie (Les couleurs du changement (French Edition))
“
Ne exprimăm iubirea, deoarece satisfacția adusă de iubire este enormă, și continuăm să ne exprimăm iubirea și să acționăm protector, deoarece pierderea iubirii e traumatizantă. Dacă n-am simți durere la pierderea ființei iubite, dacă am avea plăcerea iubirii, dar n-am simți nimic când obiectul iubirii noastre e ruină, am fi considerabil mai puțin protectori decât suntem.
”
”
Andrew Solomon (The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression)
“
Il reparto pediatrico è in una grande clinica privata che si chiama St John e che paghiamo grazie all'assicurazione del papà. Ci ho passato sei settimane quando i miei genitori si sono resi conto che in me c'era veramente qualcosa che non andava.
Il guaio è che la depressione non arriva con comodi sintomi tipo macchioline e febbre, perciò uno non se ne accorge subito. Continui a dire:"Sto benissimo" a tutti anche quando non stai bene per niente. Pensi che dovresti stare bene. Continui a chiederti:"Perché non sto bene?".
”
”
Sophie Kinsella (Finding Audrey)
“
People who are too optimistic for me love living in "La La Land" also known as (aka) Disney fairy tale movies. I don't trust people who don't live in reality. They keep forgetting their mistakes (it ain't fun to feel disappointed) and they continue to feel unreasonable hope that "next time" things will work out for them. I prefer hope based on realism. It has been said that depressed humans are the only realistic people living on planet earth. I was once a hard working optimist but now I am too sick, tired, disabled, and crabby to be hard working anymore. At the most I can be smart working but that is only due to holy spirit. I wasn't born disabled but other individuals made me permanently disabled from your point of view. Have a nice day!
”
”
Joomi aka Joo-Mi
“
Oggi la mia anima è triste fino al corpo. Tutto me stesso mi duole: la memoria, gli occhi, le braccia.
”
”
Fernando Pessoa
“
Mais, j’aurai beau supplier, j’aurai beau me révolter, il n’y aura plus rien pour moi ; je ne serai, désormais, ni heureux, ni malheureux. Je ne peux pas ressusciter. Je vieillirai aussi tranquille que je le suis aujourd’hui dans cette chambre où tant d’êtres ont laissé leur trace, où aucun être n’a laissé la sienne.
Cette chambre, on la retrouve à chaque pas. C’est la chambre de tout le monde. On croit qu’elle est fermée, non : elle est ouverte aux quatre vents de l’espace. Elle est perdue au milieu des chambres semblables, comme de la lumière dans le ciel, comme un jour dans les jours, comme moi partout.
Moi, moi ! Je ne vois plus maintenant que la pâleur de ma figure, aux orbites profondes, enterrée dans le soir, et ma bouche pleine d’un silence qui doucement, mais sûrement, m’étouffe et m’anéantit.
Je me soulève sur mon coude comme sur un moignon d’aile. Je voudrais qu’il m’arrivât quelque chose d’infini !
”
”
Henri Barbusse (Hell)
“
AMORT (AMO'RT) adv.[à la mort, Fr.]In the state of the dead; dejected; depressed; spiritless. How fares my Kate? what, sweeting, all amort?Shakespeare’sTaming of the Shrew.
”
”
Samuel Johnson (A Dictionary of the English Language (Complete and Unabridged in Two Volumes), Volume One)
“
As the story goes, during LaGuardia’s stint as judge, a little old lady who had stolen a loaf of bread for her starving grandchildren was brought into court. The fine was either ten dollars (a considerable sum in those post-Depression days) or ten days in jail. Surmising the woman’s destitute situation, Mayor LaGuardia reached into his pocket and paid the fine himself, and then passed a hat around, stating, “I’m fining everyone in this courtroom fifty cents for living in a city where a person has to steal bread in order to eat.” The old woman went home with $47.50 in her purse and hope shining in her eyes. Mayor LaGuardia demonstrated compassion at its finest in that courtroom. Compassion is empathetic willingness to enter someone else’s distress. To not only share their suffering, but take it one step further in attempting to alleviate it.
”
”
Debora M. Coty (Fear, Faith, and a Fistful of Chocolate: Wit and Wisdom for Sidestepping Life's Worries)
“
Il corpo è solo un involucro che dobbiamo portarci appresso tutta la vita, ma da cui prima o poi ci allontaniamo” rifletté. E così, anticipando i tempi, la Stefania dentro Stefania desiderava involare nella stratosfera e perdersi nel cosmo e diventare il cosmo. Prima ancora di rendersene conto, Stefania era scesa dal letto e aveva scostato le tende, che le ricaddero sulle spalle come la nube che separa il sogno dalla realtà. Il cielo a pastello, la mancanza di confine tra l’azzurro e il rosa e una meteora verde smeraldo che attraversò una costellazione le mozzarono il fiato, la placarono, infine la scossero di nuovo. “Stupide stelle” pensò, “perché brillate se tra poco vi spegnerete?
”
”
Andrea Giachè (Stupide stelle (La ragazza senza il libero arbitrio, #1))
“
Healthy levels of estrogen help you feel good. Too much estrogen can make you feel as anxious and irritable as a wet cat. Estrogen withdrawal makes you feel depressed and confused. It’s the rise and drop in estrogen that drastically affects your mood, and the more erratic your particular fluctuation is, the more upset it can make you. These problems become worse during perimenopause and menopause, when estrogen levels wane. There are three different kinds of estrogen: estrone (oestrone), estradiol (oestradiol), and estriol (oestriol). According to my friend and colleague Dr. James LaValle, author of the Metabolic Code, estrone is the estrogen to worry about. Estrone can make you more prone to cancer. Your liver, gut, and adrenal health determine what types of hormones are made. Depending
”
”
Daniel G. Amen (Unleash the Power of the Female Brain: Supercharging Yours for Better Health, Energy, Mood, Focus, and Sex)
“
Il fatto è che è difficile rigare dritto quando sai che dalla vita non avrai niente anche se ti impegni.
”
”
Livin Derevel (La comunione col tutto)
“
The questions raised by Lucretia [Mott]'s life are "How are you called into action?" and "Are you faithful to that call?" Your actions might be public or so quiet that they are never notices, which Emily [Dickinson] would have applauded. Your act of courage might be taking the time and developing the spirit to reconcile a relationship. Or it might be simply getting out of bed if you suffer from depression or going to that first A.A. meeting. You might be quietly writing letters to political prisoners through Amnesty International or sending anonymous donation to help the orphans in South Africa. You might take time each week to go to the hospital nursery to rock the neglected babies with AIDS. You may have a strong desire to cultivate your own garden and participate in growing the food you eat, allowing time for your inner spirit to grow and be nurtured as well. You may be protecting and valuing time as a parent.
It is not important whether our actions are considered large or small; it is important that they stem from the center of our being. When we learn to live from our own authenticity, we activate our still inner voice. Although Lucretia [Mott] was a lead singer on the world stage, she would have been perfectly happy singing backup for someone else -- as long as the music was right and all the people were included in the dancing.
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Helen LaKelly Hunt (Faith and Feminism: A Holy Alliance)
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Today I finally recognise the mistake that almost became my downfall: I expected too much out of life. I thought it would owe me happiness and cheerfulness. In fact, life offers neither good nor evil. Happiness is a fruit you cultivate and harvest inside your soul. You can not receive it from the outside. Why should I be fretful like a child that has got no gift? I have years ahead to be happy.
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Shan Sa (Porte de la Paix céleste)
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Ten days passed, ten days of total idleness. The novelty of our surroundings wore off and the battalion began to suffer from a spiritual disease called la cafard by the French soldiers when they were in Indochina. Its symptoms were occasional fits of depression combined with an inconquerable fatigue that made the simplest tasks, like shaving or cleaning a rifle, seem enormous. Its causes were obscure, but they had something to do with the unremitting heat, the lack of action, and the long days of staring at that alien landscape; a lovely landscape, yes, but after a while all that jungle green became as monotonous as the beige of the desert or the white of the Arctic.
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Philip Caputo (A Rumor of War: The Classic Vietnam Memoir)
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For decades, doctors and nurses trained in Western medicine had been dismissive of whole categories of diagnoses that predominated among the Indigenous population. Villagers would often visit healers and shamans who treated ailments such as mal de ojo (evil eye), pérdida del alma (loss of the soul), and el susto (the fright). Some of these afflictions dated to pre-Columbian times and went by a range of different names. El susto, the anthropologist Linda Green wrote, was “understood by its victims to be the loss of the essential life force as a result of fright.” In more conventional terms, its symptoms included depression, lethargy, insomnia, nightmares, diarrhea, and vomiting. To anyone mindful of La Violencia of the war years, the connection to post-traumatic stress was unavoidable. These conditions were, as Green put it, “social memory embodied.
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Jonathan Blitzer (Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here: The United States, Central America, and the Making of a Crisis)
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For decades, doctors and nurses trained in Western medicine had been dismissive of whole categories of diagnoses that predominated among the Indigenous population. Villagers would often visit healers and shamans who treated ailments such as mal de ojo (evil eye), pérdida del alma (loss of the soul), and el susto (the fright). Some of these afflictions dated to pre-Columbian times and went by a range of different names. El susto, the anthropologist Linda Green wrote, was “understood by its victims to be the loss of the essential life force as a result of fright.” In more conventional terms, its symptoms included depression, lethargy, insomnia, nightmares, diarrhea, and vomiting. To anyone mindful of La Violencia of the war years, the connection to post-traumatic stress was unavoidable. These conditions were, as Green put it, “social memory embodied.” In the summer of 2016, the Health Ministry announced that it would open clinics and hire personnel to treat seven different types of “ancestral maladies” that were contributing to high mortality rates in the countryside. “Independently of whether you believe it or don’t believe in this, we have seen that it’s necessary to be vigilant,” Lucrecia told one newspaper.
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Jonathan Blitzer (Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here: The United States, Central America, and the Making of a Crisis)