Walter Kirn Quotes

Could I pass a week in the insane ward at Blackwell's Island? I said I could and I would. And I did.

I don't like the term 'mental illness.' I'd rather just say 'mad.' Just like I always say 'loony bin,' not 'mental hospital.'

Melville locked himself away in his room for months while working on 'Moby Dick.' If I ever decide to write a novel, I hope someone will take pity on me and take me out to dinner instead.

My three obsessions are mental illness, horror and religion.

Female hysteria is a subject I'm very fond of. I always try to bring it in somewhere. For me, it is the finest part of the line between comedy and tragedy.

Show me the artist anywhere who's had an utterly stable mental life, and I'll buy you hot dinners for the rest of your life.

I had some experience in dealing with people who have mental illness and depression, but I didn't see the signs in myself. I couldn't ask for help because I didn't know I needed help.

The vast majority of people who have mental illness problems never hurt anybody.

The funny thing about insane people is that it is kind of the opposite of being a celebrity. Nobody envies you.

In the history of the treatment of depression, there was the dunking stool, purging of the bowels of black bile, hoses, attempts to shock the patient. All of these represent hatred or aggression towards what depression represents in the patient.

Getting to have an opportunity to tell a story that is about mental illness and how it affects one's self and one's community was really something that really meant a lot to me.

One in four of us will have a mental illness at some point. That is a lot of people.

People with mental health problems are almost never dangerous. In fact, they are more likely to be the victims than the perpetrators. At the same time, mental illness has been the common denominator in one act of mass violence after another.

Americans with mental illness deserve our understanding and they deserve excellent medical care.

Deinstitutionalization has succeeded in decreasing the overall number of hospital beds, but an unforeseen consequence has been the proportional increase in the number of people with mental illnesses housed in the criminal justice system. Worse, once imprisoned, people with mental illness are shown to have much longer incarcerations than other inmates, primarily because a prison environment and lack of treatment aggravate the very illness that has led to their objectionable or antisocial behavior.

Abraham Lincoln suffered from depression and yet was a great president. Don’t you think that should help with the stigma of mental illness? We should tell everyone about that.

The incidence of mental illness has not changed by one iota in the last 100 years.

A judge is much more likely to see a mentally ill person than is a psychiatrist. Each year over 1 million mentally ill people are arrested

The majority of the people in jail are suffering from mental illness.

The federal government has lost its way and largely ignored the needs of people with psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia and bipolar illness.

I think mental illness or madness can be an escape also. People don't develop a mental illness because they are in the happiest of situations, usually. One doctor observed that it was rare when people were rich to become schizophrenic. If they were poor or didn't have too much money, then it was more likely.

I don't find anything upsetting or gross or degrading about fighting with a mental illness: Bipolar or Schizophrenia.

When you read about it, you realize that mental illness is so prevalent. People didn't always have the right terms for it, but most families have had a brush with it.

The most dangerous thing, when you have a serious mental illness, is convincing yourself that you don't have it. And you see it all the time. People get on medication, and they feel better, and they stop taking it. And some flirt with unreality on some levels. But it feels so convincing to them that it feels real.

I wrote a show - just as a joke, actually - and called it 'Bipolar, Bath, & Beyond,' just to bring some humor to it. I wasn't saying to myself that I'll 'come out' with it - I didn't think there was anything to 'come out' with - I was just writing another one-woman show about my life.