Peter McWilliams Quotes

My God, I could raise a family of six children and hold down a full-time job with all the energy I expend on depression!

There's so much going on in the world. There's so much information being thrown at us - so many things are being sold to us, and we're being told how we should appear and how to be more successful, blah, blah, blah. How does that manifest itself? In the pressures, the stress, this need to escape.

I was just absolutely exhausted. The media said I've been treated for a nervous breakdown. All that stuff I just took as people taking the opportunity when you're down to give you a kick.

I don't know what pressures there are these days.

You live these three months in this reality, in this dark reality. You don't want to do those films every year because they're taxing. I started smoking a lot of cigarettes.

Worry - a God, invisible but omnipotent. It steals the bloom from the cheek and lightness from the pulse; it takes away the appetite, and turns the hair gray.

I think that technology - computers and smart phones and 24-hour availability - often leaves me, and others I know, feeling blank and depressed at the end of a day. I also believe that hyped expectations for raising children leaves many women and men feeling as if their days are a blur of carpools and play-groups and tutors.

After Euro 2012, I had very little holiday and almost no desire to play football. I was slipping into depression, from all the travelling.

But there was a lot of pressure to achieve and to get things right, whether in school, on stage or with my peers and family.

You never know what they're going through. Maybe they failed a test. Maybe they're going through a state of depression. Kids go through so much.

I do find working with people in the entertainment industry hard. It can cause anxiety and depression.

With social media, so many people have anxiety and depression because of it. Of course technology is somewhat good, but it can present so many issues; more and more we're seeing what that's causing, and it's even leading to deaths. I just got finished doing a documentary called Anx with children talking about anxiety and recognizing their emotions and understanding them better. We need to let kids know it's OK to not be OK. And we need to help them be comfortable talking about it.

The steady pressure to consume, absorb, participate, receive, by eye, ear, mouth, and mail involves a cruelty to intestines, blood pressure, and psyche unparalleled in history.

I think there is still pressure to marry. I think there is still pressure to have children. If you're middle or upper class, those pressures exist at a later age now.

I was certainly going the right way for a stroke when I left Paris. I paid for it nicely afterwards! When I stopped drinking, when I stopped smoking so much, when I began to think again instead of trying not to think - Good Lord, the depression and the prostration of it! Work in these magnificent natural surroundings (Arles) has restored my morale, but even now some efforts are too much for me: my strength fails me.

Worry, whatever its source, weakens, takes away courage, and shortens life.

My life is nothing but pressure. All pressure. This pressure is like a heaviness. It's always on top of me, this heaviness. It's always there since I'm a kid. Other people wake up in the morning, 'A new day! Ah, up and at 'em!' I wake up, the heaviness is waiting for me nice. Sometimes I even talk to it. I say [adopts cheerful voice] 'Hi, heaviness!' and the heaviness looks back at me, [in an ominous growl] 'Today you're gonna get it good. You'll be drinking early today.'

INTROVERTS are especially vulnerable to challenges like marital tension, a parent’s death, or abuse. They’re more likely than their peers to react to these events with depression, anxiety, and shyness. Indeed, about a quarter of Kagan’s high-reactive kids suffer from some degree of the condition known as “social anxiety disorder,” a chronic and disabling form of shyness.

I needed a vacation. I needed 5 women. I needed to get the wax out of my ears. My car needed an oil change. I'd failed to file my damned income tax. One of the stems had broken off of my reading glasses. There were ants in my apartment. I needed to get my teeth cleaned. My shoes were run down at the heels. I had insomnia. My auto insurance had expired. I cut myself every time i shaved. I hadn't laughed in 6 years. I tended to worry when there was nothing to worry about. And when there was something to worry about, i got drunk.

Depression will always follow any decision to avoid a priority.

Impatience dries the blood sooner than age or sorrow.

You can eliminate depression without making someone happy. You can cure anxiety without teaching someone optimism. You can return someone to work without improving their job performance. If all you strive for is diminishing the bad, you'll only attain the average and you'll miss out entirely on the opportunity to exceed the average.

I don't want to be smart, because being smart makes you depressed.

Work is always an antidote to depression.

The hardest work most of us do is maintaining the appearance of normality.