Lionel Shriver Quotes

I know so many people who are eaten up by regret. It manifests itself in so many ways. They either become mentally a bit off, or they get very fat, or they are just horribly depressed.

I can't imagine that anybody is as screwed up as I am.

If you want to be depressed every day, there's plenty of material. The world is crazy.

I think one of the scariest things about depression is that it exists along with the happiness and the joy, and it kind of plays with it and sucks the color from it.

Depression is so treacherous - it can be so alluring as well as punishing. After all, it's yours and yours alone - no one else can interfere with it.

I have the true feeling of myself only when I am unbearably unhappy.

Modern man is probably a more humiliated and depressed creature than he dares to know.

A lot of times, people think that it doesn't make sense for people to be depressed when they have everything, a loving husband, a successful career, fame and fortune. I wanted to make this point that profound despair can strike anybody.

Perhaps not being very self-aware in the past masked depression. I think I was confused. I think I was immature. I think I probably was quite depressed.

I can't deal with actors! I can't deal with myself. We're neurotic and miserable ... I love doing what I'm doing, but while I'm doing it, I'm miserable.

Americans are suffering so much from being in unrewarding environments that it has made us very cynical. I think that American suburbia has become a powerful generator of anxiety and depression.

The authority of depression is horrifying. I felt like my brain was busted and that I could never feel good again. I really thought that I was never gonna heal.

Of course there are times when I think, 'I'd be better out of this.'

When I was in my early forties, I slept with a loaded gun under my bed. I'd become severely depressed in my thirties, and for almost a decade I spiraled down into paranoia, rage, self-loathing, and thoughts of suicide.

What good is it to live a life that brings pains?

I might look successful and happy being in front of you today, but I once suffered from severe depression and was in total despair.

Living, it's awful for me.

Depression - it falls into that small category of things like combat that, if you haven't been in it, you can say you can imagine it all you like. But it's truly different.

The year that 'Lost' started and premiered was, without a doubt, the most miserable year of my life. The level of despair and anguish that I was feeling; I was clinically depressed, and anyone that you talked to who knew me at the time will tell you that.

One of the things that frequently gets lost in descriptions of depression is that the depressed person often knows that it is a ludicrous condition to feel so disabled by the ordinary business of quotidian life.

I used to be good friends with my depression, saying oh I'm so depressed, or life is terrible.

Underneath our nice, friendly facades there is great unease. If I were to scratch below the surface of anyone I would find fear, pain, and anxiety running amok. We all have ways to cover them up. We overeat, over-drink, overwork; we watch too much television.

I'm prone to a more depressed outlook on life.

Negative emotions like hatred destroy our peace of mind.

Since I was 16, I've felt a black cloud hangs over me.