Simon Callow Quotes

My wife was an excellent mother, her loss has left a big void in my son's life, and those are shoes that I cannot fill. The loss of a parent has not been easy on him.

With my father and sister being very depressed for most of their lives, it was incumbent on me to try to make them laugh, in this ridiculous way. They were the wittiest people I knew, but to get a smile from them was like winning the lottery.

I know I was very unstable and unhappy all through my life. I lost my mother and then my father. Losing Dad was like losing the bearings of my life. My sisters took it badly, but I took it worse. Throughout my lean phases, Dad was like a solid rock, supporting me, whether it was work, or my jail term.

I'm part of the tribe who have said goodbye to one parent and are feeling a sense of responsibility for the one who remains - in my case, my mother. How do I make her time smoother, happier? How do I try to ease her, a widow, away from the dark well of grief without dishonoring the necessity of that grief?

I was darkly convinced that at age 52 I would kill myself because my mother committed suicide at that age. I was fantasizing that she was waiting for me on the other side of the grave.

At age 12, I was put on tranquilizers when I should have gotten help. There was nothing major and awful, I just didn't feel my family was supportive and emotionally generous.

When my dad died, I had to go to therapy.

Sometimes getting something off your chest to someone else is an important step in coping - so you know that you're not alone, you're not failing, and that it is perfectly normal to feel overwhelmed or sad at times. Everybody does.

I had a real bad attitude after my dad passed of liver cancer. I was 9, and we were really close.

I, like many people, have had bumps in the road when it comes to family. Family dynamics are complicated and weigh heavily on me.

No child, through her own will, can pull a mother out of her suffering, and as an adult, I have been very busy.

My mom had the breakdown for the family, and I went into therapy for all of us.

It's a blessing not to be alone in your grief but it's also painful to see your parents and siblings in pain.

It can feel like your whole world is caving in on you, and if you don't speak about it, it gets worse. You have to talk about your problems.

I can take stress on myself but I don't like it when stress comes to my husband or children.

I worry about my children worrying about me, feeling like they need to be the strong ones. It's not the right order of things.

We don't help people mourn in our society.

I believe a child dying between a couple either makes you stronger, or it doesn't.

More than half of the complaints that patients bring to their doctors are emotional in origin. Most often, they include troubled or absent connections with loved ones.

My dad was a serious alcoholic, and ultimately, that's why he died. When you're a child of someone who struggled with things like that, you look for the common thread. Is there a pattern? Is there an inheritance of pathology in some way? That haunts me.

It's very important for me to do things like talk therapy. That's where you begin to see the walls that your illness has put up as a way to protect yourself... but of course, those walls also keep us from getting to the truth of things.

Empathy isn't the same thing as expressing emotions. It's not about sharing your feelings - it can be really uncomfortable if a parent cries or loses strength at the moment her daughter needs it most. The message sent is that you need to be taken care of, not the other way around.

My family are all mad. But I got a lot of strength from them.

I knew for years I wanted to write a novel that addressed the personal trauma of my older sister, who suffered - and still suffers - from mental illness. For a long time I imagined - and I know it's absurd - that she was an indirect casualty of the Vietnam War.

Is it fair to have a bunch of kids help solve your emotional issues? Of course not.