Gene Luen Yang Quotes

I never laugh or smile when I am writing. When I come home for lunch after writing all morning, my wife says I look like I just came home from a funeral. This is not bragging. This is an illness.

Solitude is the mother of anxieties.

I have had issues with depression all my life, and it's probably true to say there was a tendency towards it even when I was very young, during my schooldays. There was often - and this is quite common with comics - a sense of not feeling as if I belonged anywhere.

I suffer depression only in the sense that I am a writer. We don't have proper jobs to go to. We are on our own all day. Show me a writer who doesn't get depressed: who has a completely stable mood. They'd be a garage mechanic or something.

It's so easy for me to fall back into depression. I think it comes with having money. I don't have to work. I could be sitting bored and depressed at home with a bag on my head.

I can look back at different times in my life when I felt I could not find my way out of whatever it was. I'm not necessarily talking about marriage, but I wanted to pack it in. I wanted to disappear. A lot of that has to do with being in the public eye.

The great thing about suicide is that it's not one of those things you have to do now or you lose your chance. I mean, you can always do it later.

I used to like going out so much, and now I can't get myself to leave home.

I spend my life essentially alone at a computer. That doesn't change. I have the same challenges every day.

I believe a lot of disease comes from anxiety, loneliness.

The main thing that triggered my depression was my isolation that was imposed on me by becoming the wife of the prime minister, and leaving my home, my family. I was young, very young, and very naive and very hopeful and enthusiastic about my wonderful new life, but it was the loneliness and the lack of being able to properly relate to people.

We know that chronic loneliness has consequences. It certainly depresses our mood. And in terms of our health, people who struggle with loneliness also have an increased risk for cardiovascular disease, dementia, depression, and anxiety. Loneliness is also associated with a shorter lifespan.

I was so unhappy during the last months on 'Bonanza' I was really neurotic. I was anti-social.

I was miserable at uni. There were months at a time when I wouldn't leave the house unless it was to buy food. I lost a lot of friendships. I later lost jobs because of my mental health.

My calendar was empty. Touring the way we did and having a schedule like we did institutionalizes you in a way where you don't know anything else. I think I went through the darkest depression I've ever felt in my life.

I liked interacting with students. I liked having coworkers. For a long time, I was really worried that sitting at home by myself in front of a computer was going to make me crazy.

It's the boredom that kills you. You read until you're tired of that. You do crossword puzzles until you're tired of that. This is torture. This is mental torture.

Reading - the best state yet to keep absolute loneliness at bay.

Never having alone time is real tough on people.

Schizophrenia beats dining alone.

My bed isn't made, I'm tired, I haven't slept well for two weeks. I haven't been laid in a month. I don't have a girlfriend. I have a warrant for my arrest.

TV does not care about you or what happens to you. It's downright bad for your health now, and that's not a far-out concept. I think watching the TV news is bad for you. It is bad for your physical health and your mental health.

What good is sitting all alone in your room?

The principal contributor to loneliness in this country is television. What happens is that the family 'gets together' alone.

There were times when I've not wanted to be in my own skin, and that's a very scary feeling.