Matt Haig Quotes

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.

Somebody talked me into writing an autobiography about six or seven years ago. And I said I'd try. We talked into a tape recorder, and after a couple of months, I said, To hell with it. I was so depressed. It was like saying, 'This is the end.' I was more interested in what the hell was coming the next day or the next week.

The self-help section of national bookstore chains in America is one of the largest sections. In a way, it's nothing new, and in another way, very new. People have always searched for answers; that's why we have religion. People have always been seeking some relief from their own mortality.

We have a lot of depressed people in the world because they don't know what their purpose is in life.

I believe that curiosity, wonder and passion are defining qualities of imaginative minds and great teachers; that restlessness and discontent are vital things; and that intense experience and suffering instruct us in ways that less intense emotions can never do.

When people don't have any curiosity about themselves, that is always a bad sign.

Sometimes you can know too much. A lot of brainy people like Stephen Fry are quite depressive.

I love books, and all the best ones are people analysing their own emotions. You can learn from that.

I go through major crises every few months, but then I have great peaks of belief and creativity. I'm a weird kind of animal.

Like most people, I woke up one day to find that everyone I knew was taking antidepressants, and since I wasn't, I figured that I must be the cause of their depression.

We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out.

If you've done what you need to do, you need to go bury yourself, because what else are you going to do? I think that that's where life stops.

I just want to live each moment, but it's kind of hard to do that when you are asked to analyze yourself constantly. But it's also good in that you are forced to think about things that you don't ordinarily think about. I think it's strange.

I think anything that anyone writes that's any good is going to have a lot of autobiography.

If you have a little sensibility or a heart, you have all the reason to be depressed once in a while. But the depression is like a motor for creation. I need a little bit of depression, a bit of acid in my stomach, to be able to create. When I'm happy, I just want to dance.

Sometimes I wake up and think, 'How did I get here?'

I'm terrified of therapy because I don't want it to mess with my creativity.

I feel at various times in my life that I've been at a point where I had to choose between a death sentence and a life sentence. And I want to live. What do I do to live? What do I do to be vital? And the answer is always creativity. The answer is always art.

I think I write about things that are mysterious to me.

I don't consciously use my own life or experience at all.

I don't know why I write what I write.

There's so much of our psychological makeup which is impermissible for us to explore because it's inappropriate or perverse or scary. I'm interested in exploring that in myself. I try to be honest with myself about everything that I feel. I'm not saying I'm able to do that all the time, but it's something I'm interested in.

If I ever stopped being angry, I couldn't write anymore. How could I?

To me that's what Jobs was about. He said at the end of the movie, 'When you realize that the world was created by people no smarter than you, your life will change.' That, to me, is a message for right now and people figuring out what they're going to do with themselves.

I hope people start to look at their lives as the most powerful, creative act they will ever offer this world.