David Sheff Quotes

Whenever I have a bad day I just think of these people.

Being able to laugh at a situation can help you hang on to your perspective. And there's an intimacy in laughter that nothing else can come close to.

And I definitely gravitate toward people who use laughter to pull themselves out of the abyss.

I find that people find a way out of misery through humor and it's humor that's often unacceptable to people who are not in quite such a state of misery.

When you see a struggle that you may be having personally put on a big screen and in a roomful of people, then it makes you feel less crazy or alone, because you're seeing that other people are dealing with it too. You get to see in this imaginary scenario how people might try and answer some questions or deal with some problems.

But you can't realize, you can't know what another person goes through.

It's incredibly rewarding to have people come up to me at readings and say, 'I'm not Chinese, but this is the relationship I have with my mother.' Or say, 'Your book made me think a lot about my parents, and I've decided to sign up for counseling.' That is mind-boggling.

I try to be positive, and from 'Individual'... which was an angry record. I got a lot of mail from people pouring out their feelings, saying that they could really relate to certain topics that I touched upon. When I read that, it lets know that there are people out there that are people out there who are going through the same things.

With things that I'm going through, whether they be on a small scale or a large scale, I'm thinking, 'Who else is going through this? And how can I address it and bring it to light to help someone else?'

Everybody's gone through some kind of struggle in their life, and I'd like to be the type of voice who talks about it.

The ultimate touchstone of friendship is not improvement, neither of the other nor of the self: the ultimate touchstone is witness, the privilege of having been seen by someone and the equal privilege of being granted the sight of the essence of another, to have walked with them and to have believed in them, and sometimes just to have accompanied them for however brief a span, on a journey impossible to accomplish alone.

It seems to be this hot-bed for these ideas and bringing these groups together. You find that the one thing that everybody has in common, whether they're a teenager who has run away from his parents, or a divorcee who lost her husband, is that they all have in common this feeling of searching for a meaning in their lives.

Most people need love and acceptance a lot more than they need advice.

I think sharing experience makes everything better. When people get talking about how they've overcome something or how they haven't, it's nourishing.

If you're going to make an emotional connection with somebody, whether it's in the story or in the world, there's a certain amount of self-acceptance that is required.

All my closest friends are the ones I made while in college or who knew me growing up. They keep me grounded, and I adore that about them.

I think it's important to relate to one another about issues that you're having, because the second you open up and someone else says, 'Oh, me too. I feel the same way,' then all of a sudden, you feel more at peace with yourself and you can feel more confident with who you are.

Friendship allows you to see your own life but with a second sympathetic self.

Shame is always easier to handle if you have someone to share it with.

Friendship is strengthened by...that which ever so lightly elevates us from the trough of self-concern and self-devotion.

At my lowest moments, I think of people who come to shows. I still get very sad and sometimes I feel like I have no friends, but when that happens now, I'll think of people whose names or faces I don't know - they're my friends and they love me. I've got them. It really does save me. I still feel awkward, but that's the one thing I can grab onto at my lowest points.

What I feel now is connected to people. I feel connected and I feel a lot of love for people. I feel the possibility of what building social movements and what working together in struggle creates. Whatever that energy is, it feels a lot better than what I felt when I was younger - which was worthless and disconnected and isolated and alone.

I think the hardest part to get to is that point of asking for help or reaching out to other people and being honest with yourself.

To those human beings who are of any concern to me, I wish suffering, desolation, sickness, ill treatment, indignities, profound self-contempt, the torture of self-mistrust, and the wretchedness of the vanquished.

Joy multiplies when it is shared among friends, but grief diminishes with every division. That is life.