Victor LaValle Quotes

As a kid, I was scared of losing my mind. In Terrell, Texas, where I grew up, there was a guy that would walk down the street talking to himself. And I used to watch him and feel uneasy. And there was a sanitarium where people would say, 'That's where all the crazy people go.' It really sort of frightened me.

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.

People get really irritated by mental illness.

One day, I made a remark that I might work with people with mental illness, and somebody in the press heard it, and it was in the paper. And the more I thought about it and found out about it, the more I thought it was just a terrible situation with no attention. And I've been working on it ever since.

I'd had episodes before, but I swept them under the carpet. This time, I couldn't do that because everyone knew. I got on with the hard work of getting better and haven't had a blip in almost 10 years.

Thinking you've had depression makes about as much sense as thinking you've been run over by a bus. Trust me - you know when you've got depression.

People are always selling the idea that people with mental illness are suffering. I think madness can be an escape. If things are not so good, you maybe want to imagine something better.

The strongest predictor of unhappiness is anyone who has had a mental illness in the last 10 years. It is an even stronger predictor of unhappiness than poverty - which also ranks highly.

Mental health is such a complex thing and so difficult to diagnose. What is a mental problem? Who does have mental problems? What's the difference between mental problems and depression and sadness?

You can never turn the clock back and, since we're talking about mental health, I would stress that.

I want to show that the dividing lines between sanity and mental illness have been drawn in the wrong place.

The mental health conversation is very important to me. I have friends that struggle with various mental illnesses. I've struggled with depression and anxiety. I'm very interested in how we deal with that.

I always had a desire to know asylum life more thoroughly - a desire to be convinced that the most helpless of God's creatures, the insane, were cared for kindly and properly.

I attribute the black tones in my films to Stephen King, Tim Burton, Joe Hill and Richard Matheson. However, most of my writing is influenced by mental health. I'm incredibly passionate about shedding light on the stigmas associated with mental illnesses.

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.

I've been insane from a very early age.

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.

I am also deeply concerned with the widespread, often undiagnosed, incidents of PTSD and the alarming suicide rates amongst our returning soldiers.

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.

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

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