Quotes & Sayings About Being Depressed

When famous people are nice to me, it feels good, so I'm happy to hang out with them. It's better than being at home, depressed, reading 'The Hobbit.' — Moby

Life everywhere is life, life is in ourselves and not in the external. There will be people near me, and to be a human being among human beings, and remain one forever, no matter what misfortunes befall, not to become depressed, and not to falter- this is what life is, herein lies its task. I have come to recognize this. This idea has entered into my flesh and blood. Yes, it's true! That head which created, lived b the hightes life of art, which acknowledged and had come to know the highest demands of the spirit, that head has been cut from my shoulders. Memory remains, and the images I have created and still not molded in flesh. They will leave their harsh mark on me, it is true! But my heart is left me, and the same flesh and blood which likewise can love and suffer and desire and remember, and this is, after all, life. on voit le soleil! — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

I'm like the opposite of one of those comedians who's funny on stage and depressed behind closed doors . On record, I can get pretty dark, but in real life I'm very carefree. But when I'm happy, I ain't writing songs, I'm out having a laugh, being in love. I wouldn't have the time. If I ever get married, it'll be 'Darling, I need a divorce, it's been three years, I've got a record to write!' — Adele

My day passes between logic, whistling, going for walks, and being depressed. I wish to God that I were more intelligent and everything would finally become clear to me - or else that I needn't live much longer. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

I kind of have a happy magnet. I can't stand being depressed, so I work my ass off to get out of it as soon as possible. — Sarah McLachlan

Elza needed challenges in her life, needed to be occupied. Without walls to climb or windmills to attack she was the type of person who became depressed. She knew this. The feeling lived inside her somewhere - probably nestled close to her solar plexus. Yes, it seemed like that was the case. She felt it right in her chest. So, to escape dwelling on her anxieties - which she was prone to do - Elza lived in a state of perpetual movement. If she slowed down or was obstructed, even for a moment, she would suffer being left alone with herself, and then all would be lost. — Marc Fitten

To draw for a moment from an entirely different corner of my life, that part of me still attached to the biological sciences, there is ample evidence that animals - rats and monkeys, for example - that are forced into a subordinate status within their social systems adapt their brain chemistry accordingly, becoming 'depressed' in humanlike ways. Their behavior is anxious and withdrawn; the level of serotonin (the neurotransmitter boosted by some antidepressants) declines in their brains. And - what is especially relevant here - they avoid fighting even in self-defense ... My guess is that the indignities imposed on so many low-wage workers - the drug tests, the constant surveillance, being 'reamed out' by managers - are part of what keeps wages low. If you're made to feel unworthy enough, you may come to think that what you're paid is what you are actually worth. — Barbara Ehrenreich

I'll play for Rangers as long as I can, then spend the rest of my life being depressed — Ally McCoist

After you finish (writing a book) you are intensely depressed. It doesn't much matter whether the reviews are good or not. You feel empty, a field lying fallow, and you must let it stay fallow for a while. You love a book when it's being written. You are so close to it. You are the only person who knows it and it's still full of potential ... Then, suddenly, there's the dreadful day when you have the printed proof texts ... It's a feeling of death, really. — John Fowles

I am very grateful for my life. I think one of the keys to not being depressed is to find gratitude and to be grateful for what you have. So I am grateful for what I have. — James Franco

The quick ticket to ecstasy is to catch yourself feeling in a very low state of mind
depressed, stupid, hateful
and to love yourself for feeling that way. When you do that you can experience a rocket ride right to the top. Love does not take time; it's possible to transform depression into ecstasy in a flash. But please do not accept my word for it. Try it as an experiment next time you are feeling low.
Something else to consider is that we will always be in the process of remembering how to love ourselves, then forgetting, then remembering again. It does not seem to be our destiny to be any one way all the time. So let's get used to being pendulums and enjoy the ride. — Gay Hendricks

Of the thousands of patients I have seen, only two or three have ever claimed to be unhappy: all the rest have said that they were depressed. This semantic shift is deeply significant, for it implies that dissatisfaction with life is itself pathological, a medical condition, which it is the responsibility of the doctor to alleviate by medical means. Everyone has a right to health; depression is unhealthy; therefore everyone has a right to be happy (the opposite of being depressed). This idea in turn implies that one's state of mind, or one's mood, is or should be independent of the way that one lives one's life, a belief that must deprive human existence of all meaning, radically disconnecting reward from conduct. A ridiculous pas de deux between doctor and patient ensues: the patient pretends to be ill, and the doctor pretends to cure him. In the process, the patient is wilfully blinded to the conduct that inevitably causes his misery in the first place. — Theodore Dalrymple

When a depressed person shrinks away from your touch it does not mean he is rejecting you. Rather he is protecting you from the foul, destructive evil which he believes is the essence of his being and which he believes can injure you. — Dorothy Rowe

[...] what else motivated him to spend hour after hour with me, telling all the details of his story? I quote at length his answer.

"I suffered so much and for so long. Maybe if people read this they will realize that if I can make it,they can make it. Many people suffer only because of what happens in their head; I was also physically being tortured. I had no food. No water. If I can make it so can you. If one depressed person avoids committing suicide then the book is a success.

Be strong. Think positive. If you start to think to the contrary, you are headed to failure. Your mind has to be relaxed as you think about survival. Don't think about death. If you think you are going to die, you will die. You have to survive and think about the future of your life, that life is beautiful! How can you imagine taking your own life? There are challenges and punishment in life but you have to fight! — Jonathan Franklin

Married women are far more depressed than married men
in unhappy marriages, three times more; and
interestingly
in happy marriages, five times more. In truth, it is men who are thriving in marriage, now as always, and who show symptoms of psychological and physical distress outside it. Not only their emotional well-being but their very lives, some studies say, depend on being married! — Dalma Heyn

If you spend your whole life being depressed about life, you're wasting it. — C. K. Williams

Being witty was the only side effect of being depressed that was working for me. — Jessi Klein

When a depressed person does get out of bed, it's usually not with a sudden insight that life is rich and valuable, but out of some creeping sense of duty or instinct for survival. If collapsing is sometimes vital, so is the brute force of will. To William James we owe the insight that, in the absence of real health, we sometimes must act as if we are healthy. Buoyed by such discipline and habit, we might achieve actual well-being. — Joshua Wolf Shenk

Anguished (forlorn, depressed, pitiful): Sweating; racing pulse; feeling of suffocating; trembling; palpitations; extreme uneasiness; a sense of being defenceless and powerless to deal with a danger that seems vague but imminent; becoming focused on the present and unable to perform more than one task at a time; signs of muscle tension and difficulty breathing, as well as digesting food; restlessness or "edginess"; fatigue; problems with concentration; irritability or moodiness; tension; problems associated with sleep. Anticipate — Tim Ellis

The vulgar charge that the tendency of democracies is to leveling, meaning to drag all down to the level of the lowest, is singularly untrue; its real tendency being to elevate the depressed to a condition not unworthy of their manhood. — James F. Cooper

If you get depressed about being the second-best team in the world, then you've got a problem. — Julius Erving

I do less of that stuff now because I figured out that when I was writing things I didn't care about, it made me angry and depressed, so I turned my focus to what does make me happy, and also I recognized that one of the things that gives me great happiness is teaching creative writing, and so I could write profiles of professional golfers or I could be a professor. Being a professor made me much happier. — Tod Goldberg

This is my depressed stance. When you're depressed, it makes a lot of difference how you stand. The worst thing you can do is straighten up and hold your head high because then you'll start to feel better. If you're going to get any joy out of being depressed, you've got to stand like this. — Charles M. Schulz

They were too near to me. I loved them to much. And the love overtaking me and combined with the fact that I was going to spend another evening alone, doing nothing with it, being waited down to motionlessness by my own actions made me want to get it over with and fucking be alone. — Courtney Maum

Of course, I would be depressed sometimes, and my Mom would be worried about me because I would just sleep to escape. Cause I was so scared of being a musician or artist, or whatever you want to call it. — Chantal Kreviazuk

The circles of shame are vicious. Painful feelings of shame help cause people to be depressed and suicidal, these in turn become shameful aspects of the self. Being angry does not necessarily cause more anger, being envious does not necessarily cause more envy (though once we envy, we can also envy someone's lack of envy), but, in our culture at least, shame (and envy and self-pity) are things to be ashamed about. The two common feelings of suicide are hopelessness and powerlessness; each is shameful, and this additional experience of shame adds pain on pain. A man who despairs because he feels his prospects of having a family are hopeless also feels he will never lose the feeling of shame over being wifeless and childless. To be powerless to change one's life in ways that others can is cause to feel ashamed of one's powerlessness. — David L. Conroy

'The Stand' came out in May of '94 and was seen by 60 million people a night for four nights, and then two months later, 'Forrest Gump' opened. So within a very short time, I went from being depressed about not getting any work to being in two of the most popular shows of the year. — Gary Sinise

Others imply that they know what it is like to be depressed because they have gone through a divorce, lost a job, or broken up with someone. But these experiences carry with them feelings. Depression, instead, is flat, hollow, and unendurable. It is also tiresome. People cannot abide being around you when you are depressed. They might think that they ought to, and they might even try, but you know and they know that you are tedious beyond belief: you are irritable and paranoid and humorless and lifeless and critical and demanding and no reassurance is ever enough. You're frightened, and you're frightening, and you're "not at all like yourself but will be soon," but you know you won't. — Kay Redfield Jamison

Ah, clever clogs, but it will have happened in one of my alternative lives. You know
the lives hot-shot scientists tell us we are living at the same time as this one we know about. Which being so, how do you know that what happens in one of your alternative lives doesn't sometimes leak through into your consciousness in this life, and make you sad that you aren't living that particular alternative life instead of this one? Don't you sometimes feel depressed for no reason you can think of? I do. And maybe that's why. We've had a leak from an alternative life and want that life now. Like wanting an ice cream when you were little, which you knew was in the freezer, but your mom wouldn't let you have it. — Aidan Chambers

My greatest urge in life is to do nothing. It's not even an absence of motivation, a lack, for I do have a strong urge: to do nothing. To down tools, to stop. Except I know that if I do that I will fall into despair, and I know that it is worth doing anything in one's power to avoid depression because from there, from being depressed, it is only an imperceptible step to despair: the last refuge of the ego. — Geoff Dyer

I myself cried when I got angry, then became unable to explain why I was angry in the first place. Later I would discover this was endemic among female human beings. Anger is supposed to be "unfeminine" so we suppress it -until it overflows. I could see that not speaking up made my mother feel worse. This was my first hint of the truism that depression is anger turned inward; thus women are twice as likely to be depressed. My mother paid a high price for caring so much, yet being able to do so little about it. In this way, she led me toward am activist place where she herself could never go. — Gloria Steinem

No one is depressed when they're being chased by a bear. — Adam Carolla

I now believe that virtually all my problems could be attributed to my brain's being configured differently from those of the majority of humans. All the psychiatric symptoms were a result of this difference, not of any underlying disease. Of course I was depressed: I lacked friends, sex, and a social life, because I was incompatible with other people. My intensity and focus were misinterpreted as mania. And my concern with organization was labeled as obsessive-compulsive disorder. Julie — Graeme Simsion

I think you get mentally ill being homeless. Most of the bag ladies wind up mentally ill pretty quickly - what people would call paranoid - because they are in such danger. I don't know if it's really paranoia because they are in great danger. Terrible things happen to them, and they lose everything. How could they not become at the very least severely depressed? — Alix Kates Shulman

One of the manifestations of depression for me is that I lose my will. And I thereby lose my ability to focus. I don't think I'll ever have the day-to-day consistency in my performance that something like This American Life has. If I'm not depressed and I'm on and I can focus and I can think through something hard and without interruption and without existential emptiness that comes from depression, that gives me - not mania. But I exalt. I exalt in not being depressed. — Rachel Maddow

Julia's fears of coming forward with the violence were based on anticipated as well as actual responses from friends and acquaintances. I also recognized Julia's introverted and moody side, but I knew she wasn't capable of inciting her husband to kick, choke, and lock her in her home like an animal. Besides, considering how she was being treated, it was not surprising that she seemed moody, sensitive, even depressed. More important, nothing any woman could do could justify such behavior. — Susan Weitzman

Mouse was always depressed because he was afraid of cats. A great wizard took pity on him and turned him into a cat. Then he started to be afraid of dogs, and so the wizard turned him into a dog. Then he began to fear tigers. The wizard, who was very patient, used his powers to turn him into a tiger. Then he was afraid of hunters. Finally, the wizard gave up and turned him back into a mouse, saying: Nothing I do will help you, because you never understood your growth. You are better being what you always were. — Paulo Coelho

What I had was classic short-term PTSD. From an evolutionary perspective, it's exactly the response you want to have when your life is in danger: you want to be vigilant, you want to avoid situations where you are not in control, you want to react to strange noises, you want to sleep lightly and wake easily, you want to have flashbacks and nightmares that remind you of specific threats to your life, and you want to be, by turns, angry and depressed. Anger keeps you ready to fight, and depression keeps you from being too active and putting yourself in more danger. Flashbacks also serve to remind you of the danger that's out there - a "highly efficient single-event survival-learning mechanism," as one researcher termed it. All humans react to trauma in this way, and most mammals do as well. It may be unpleasant, but it's preferable to getting killed. Like — Sebastian Junger

Depressions and melancholy are often a cover for tremendous greed.
At the beginning of an analysis there is often a depressed state of resignation-life has no meaning, there is no feeling of being in life. An exaggerated state can develop into complete lameness. Quite young people give the impression of having the resignation of a bitter old man or woman. When you dig into such a black mood you find that behind it there is overwhelming greed-for being loved, for being very rich, for having the right partner, for being the top dog, etc.
Behind such a melancholic resignation you will often discover in the darkness a recurring theme which makes things very difficult, namely if you give such people one bit of hope, the lion opens its mouth and you have to withdraw, and then they put the lid on again, and so it goes on, back and forth. — Marie-Louise Von Franz

I figured I had kept her from being too depressed after fucking
it's hard for a girl with any force in her and any brains to accept the whole thing of fucking, of being fucked without trying to turn it on its end, so that she does some fucking, or some fucking up; I mean, the mere power of arousing the man so he wants to fuck isn't enough; she wants him to be willing to die in order to fuck. There's a kind of strain or intensity women are bred for, as beasts, for childbearing when childbearing might kill them, and child rearing when the child might die at any moment: it's in women to live under that danger, with that risk, that close to tragedy, with that constant taut or casual courage. They need death and nobility near. To be fucked when there's no drama inherent in it, when you're not going to rise to a level of nobility and courage forever denied the male, is to be cut off from what is inherently female, bestially speaking. — Harold Brodkey

I hated being depressed, but it was also in depression that I learned my own acreage, the full extent of my soul. — Andrew Solomon

We are poor in spite of all our wealth because we have much, but we are little.' As a result, the average man feels insecure, lonely, depressed, and suffers from a lack of joy in the midst of plenty. Life does not make sense to him; he is dimly aware that the meaning of life cannot lie in being nothing but a 'consumer.' He could not stand the joylessness and meaninglessness of life were it not for the fact that the system offers him innumerable avenues of escape, ranging from television to tranquilizers, which permit him to forget that he is losing more and more of all that is valuable in life. — Erich Fromm

All I can say to people who hate their mothers for giving birth to them is "get the fuck out of your scaredy shells and kiss the world". — Jay Woodman

People are getting ready for music that makes them feel happy again rather than being depressed at the way the world is going right now. — Estelle

Being depressed and suicidal doesn't mean wanting to kill yourself every moment of every day. It may be a fixed obsession, but sometimes it gets relegated to the back of your head. Rather, it means the world takes on the very cut and dry, black and white, unilateral aspect of a flowchart. — Nenia Campbell

Over the past thirty-five years, untold numbers of gay Christians have turned from God in their "failure" and "inability to please God," who, they were told, could not accept them as a gay person. Some felt so rejected and depressed that they turned to self-destructive behaviors, including suicide; some went deep in the closet to try to fit in at church; some became vehemently opposed to all things religious; some decided to seek God in other religions, or no religion; and very few individuals were able to find a church community in which they could worship and serve God without being rejected. — Kathy Baldock

Another difference between psychopaths and other inmates is that psychopaths don't get distressed by being in prison. Most inmates get depressed when they get inside, and they find prison to be a stressful experience. A hallmark feature of psychopaths' disorder is that they don't get bothered by much of anything. They don't ruminate and they don't get depressed. — Kent A. Kiehl

When you're depressed, it's like you pick up one of those shields in a video game, but instead of protecting your life power, it blocks you from being able to receive any affirmation or encouragement. — Sammy Rhodes

My mind is, to use a disgustingly obvious simile, like a wastebasket full of waste paper; bits of hair, and rotting apple cores. I am feeling depressed from being exposed to so many lives, so many of them exciting, new to my realm of experience. I pass by people, grazing them on the edges, and it bothers me. I've got to admire someone to really like them deeply - to value them as friends. It was that way with Ann: I admired her wit, her riding, her vivacious imagination - all the things that made her the way she was. I could lean on her as she leaned on me. Together the two of us could face anything - only not quite anything, or she would be back. And so she is gone, and I am bereft for awhile. But what do I know of sorrow? — Sylvia Plath

In many shamanic societies, people who complain of being disheartened ... or depressed would be asked, ... When did you stop dancing? ... This is because dancing is a universal healing salve. — Gabrielle Roth

I kind of like being depressed. — Nate Ruess

When we are depressed, our thinking blocks us from being aware of our needs, and then being able to take action to meet our needs. — Marshall B. Rosenberg

How easily we accept the fact that this is a varied world, with many races, cultures, and mores. In America we rejoice in this diversity, this pluralism, which makes up the rich pattern of our national being. We should learn to accept this pluralism in ourselves, to rejoice in the truth that we human being consist of a variety of moods, impulses, traits, and emotions ... If we become pluralistic in thinking about ourselves, we shall learn to take the depressed mood or the cruel mood or the uncooperative mood for what is, one of many, fleeting, not permanent. As pluralists we take ourselves for worse as well as for better, cease demanding a brittle perfection which can lead only to inner despair. There are facets of failure in every person's makeup and there are elements of success. Both must be accepted while we try to emphasize the latter through self-knowledge. — Joshua Loth Liebman

I hated him for not being depressed. He seemed a fool
everyone who didn't feel like me was a fool. I alone knew the truth about life, knew that it was all a miserable downward spiral that you could either admit to or ignore, but sooner or later we were all going to die. — Elizabeth Wurtzel

However, when we are depressed, being reminded of other people's suffering only serves to increase our self-hatred. — Dorothy Rowe

Dad seemed lost in a depressed daze. He had recently been saying privately that the evangelical world was more or less being led by lunatics, psychopaths, and extremists, and agreeing with me that if "our side" ever won, America would be in deep trouble. But by then Dad was dying and knew he had very little time left. There was no time to change his life or his new "friends." All — Frank Schaeffer

Don't get depressed about not being where you want to be. This nagging feeling of anxiety is actually called ambition. Ambition is your friend. — Atom Egoyan

For me being depressed means you can spend all day in bed, and still not get a good night's rest. — Judith Guest

Running has made being depressed impossible. If I'm going through something emotional and just go outside for a run, you can rest assured I'll come back with clarity. — Alanis Morissette

I don't waste time being depressed. — Marc Andreessen

Don't get upset with your imperfections. It's a great mistake because it leads nowhere - to get angry because you are angry, upset at being upset, depressed at being depressed, disappointed because you are disappointed. So don't fool yourself. Simply surrender to the Power of God's Love, which is always greater than our weakness. — Francis De Sales

Virtuous people always let go.
They don't prattle about pleasures and desires.
Touched by happiness and then by suffering,
The sage shows no sign of being elated or depressed. — Gautama Buddha

Being depressed does not disqualify you from being used by God either. Sometimes God uses us in spite of our depression. Sometimes He uses us because of our depression. God wants us to live a life of joy. We also have real and raw emotions, including depression. When you are depressed, don't hide from the Bible, run to it. Don't feel condemned, feel comforted. — Jason R. McNaughten

The absolute worst part of being depressed is the food. A person's relationship with food is one of their most important relationships. I don't think your relationship with your parents is that important. Some people never know their parents. I don't think your relationship with your friends are important. But your relationship with air-that's key. You can't break up with air. You're kind of stuck together. Only slightly less crucial is water. And then food. You can't be dropping food to hang with someone else. You need to strike up an agreement with it. — Ned Vizzini

They thought depression was like bieng 'depressed'. They thought it was like being in a bad mood, only worse. Therefore, they tried to get him to snap out of it. — Jeffrey Eugenides

Was this for real? Andrew had forgotten how to be happy! He suspected that it involved unwarranted feelings of fondness for other people, too much self-esteem, a sort of long-term delusion that manifested as charisma, and a blocking out of certain things, like lonely people, depressed people, desperate people, homeless people, people you've hurt, people you like who don't like you, politics, the nature of being and existence, the continent of Africa, the meat industry, McDonald's, MTV, Hollywood, and most or all of human history, especially anything having to do with the Western Hemisphere between 1400 and 1900, plus or minus 200 years
but he wasn't sure. Why did it involve so many things? Maybe it was just too hard. — Tao Lin

Sometimes she missed people before they even left her, got depressed about a vacation being over before it started. — Jennifer Close

There is a difference between broke and being poor. Being broke is a temporary economic condition, but being poor is a disabling frame of mind and a depressed condition of your spirit, and you must vow to never, ever be poor again. — John Hope Bryant

Today worrying means to be occupied and preoccupied with many things, while at the same time being bored, resentful, depressed, and very lonely. — Henri J.M. Nouwen

Don't accuse me of being morbid when I'm merely the product of a culture that buries the bones of the ones they love in pretty, manicured flower gardens so they can keep them nearby and go talk to them whenever they feel troubled or depressed. That's morbid. Not to mention bizarre. Dogs bury bones, too. — Karen Marie Moning

The experience of being depressed and emerging from depression made me understand the idea of a soul. I felt that the language in which one could best acknowledge that drew from faith. — Andrew Solomon

O music! A melody occurs to you; you sing it silently, inwardly only; you steep your being in it; it takes possession of all your strength and emotions, and during the time it lives in you, it effaces all that is fortuitous, evil, coarse, and sad in you; it brings the world into harmony with you, it makes burdens light and gives wings to depressed spirits. The melody of a folk song can do that. And first of all harmony! For each harmonious chord of pure-toned notes - those of church bells, for example - fills the spirit with grace and delight, a feeling that is intensified by every additional note; and at times this can enchant the heart and make it tremble with bliss as no other sensual pleasure can. — Hermann Hesse

Being a salesman and an actor were not that dissimilar: It is a good lesson in covering up your feelings. No one wants to buy from someone who looks depressed. — Dougray Scott

The human being is like a light bulb. If a human being is super stressed, depressed and filled with negativity, this is what that human being radiates out into the world. — David Lynch

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. — Miriam Toews

In many shamanic societies, if you came to a medicine person complaining of being disheartened, dispirited, or depressed, they would ask one of four questions: When did you stop dancing? When did you stop singing? When did you stop being enchanted by stories? When did you stop being comforted by the sweet territory of silence? — Gabrielle Roth

No reason to feel depressed about being depressed. A depression can be a golden opportunity to collect the pieces and build ourselves anew. Global Souls are always on the move, nomads at heart, connected to various cities, commuters between cultures, both from here and everywhere. — Elif Shafak

I just got tired of being sick and tired and feeling down. Unfortunately, you don't realize this until you're getting sober but the reason why you're depressed all the time is it's the drugs that are depressing you. — Steven Adler

I am not depressed; my life is just shit. As a consequence of my not being depressed, I am not like them. You need to know this from the very off. You need to know I, Arch Fry, will not allow myself to be neatly pigeonholed, erroneously labelled or closed off in some tidy little box - one to be shelved away and conveniently forgotten about.
No, I am not depressed: NOT. DEPRESSED.
You see, I'm just not stuck in some deep unassailable chasm like all the rest, like all these other poor fuckers who've so readily accepted that noose of a word. — Tom Conrad

Googling me, you talk about being depressed. First of all there's 18 websites that predict my early death. — Artie Lange

A deaf composer's like a cook who's lost his sense of taste. A frog that's lost its webbed feet. A truck driver with his license revoked. That would throw anybody for a loop, don't you think? But Beethoven didn't let it get to him. Sure, he must have been a little depressed at first, but he didn't let misfortune get him down. It was like, Problem? What problem? He composed more than ever and came up with better music than anything he'd ever written. I really admire the guy. Like this Archduke Trio
he was nearly deaf when he wrote it, can you believe it? What I'm trying to say is, it must be tough on you not being able to read, but it's not the end of the world. You might not be able to read, but there are things only you can do. That's what you gotta focus on
your strengths. Like being able to talk with the stone. — Haruki Murakami

So much of college is girls labeling other girls terrible things when they don't like their behavior, but using concerned language so they have plausible deniability is they get accused of being bitches: That girl is not cheerfully doing what the rest of us are doing, so she is probably 'depressed' or 'has an eating disorder' or 'is weird with guys,' and so on. — Mindy Kaling

Many of my daily preoccupations suggest that I belong more to the world than to God. A little criticism makes me angry, and a little rejection makes me depressed. A little praise raises my spirits, and a little success excites me. It takes very little to raise me up or thrust me down. Often I am like a small boat on the ocean, completely at the mercy of its waves. All the time and energy I spend in keeping some kind of balance and preventing myself from being tipped over and drowning shows that my life is mostly a struggle for survival: not a holy struggle, but an anxious struggle resulting from the mistaken idea that it is the world that defines me. — Henri J.M. Nouwen

The theme that runs through all my books is connection. Connection - physical and non-physical - with other humans, and connection with nature are necessary for our well-being. Without it, we are depressed, lonely, and fail to thrive. — Mary Alice Monroe

And it started out fun. We were chattering enthusiastically, flipping between CNN, MSNBC, and FOX News. But as the evening wore on, and the numbers rolled in, it got quieter, and I found myself becoming intensely depressed. Why was I putting myself through this? The issues I've devoted my life to have become so marginalized by the coverage that they have no possible relevance to me. I can't even blame the media - people simply don't care about alternate-party politics. And why should they? I'm so far in the minority that my activism is a joke, a punchline that stopped being funny years ago. It goes beyond rooting for the underdog. It's not rooting for the Giants: it's more like, say, rooting for the Twins. But during the Super Bowl. — Phillip Andrew Bennett Low

I have become down-hearted, I have become discouraged, I have become depressed. I'm just like you. I'm a human being and I have my problems. — Dyan Cannon

Out there people are working and arguing and laughing, living their beautiful, terrible lives, falling in love and having babies and being bored out of their skulls and feeling depressed, then being consoled by some little thing like watching the patterns the light makes through the leaves of trees, casting shadows on the sidewalks.
I remember the line from that poem now.
Downward to darkness, on extended wings. — Kim Addonizio

It is too often the quality of happiness that you feel at every moment its fragility, while depression seems when you are in it to be a state that will never pass. Even if you accept that moods change, that whatever you feel today will be different tomorrow, you cannot relax into happiness like you can into sadness. For me, sadness has always been and still is a more powerful feeling; and if that is not a universal experience, perhaps it is the base from which depression grows. I hated being depressed, but it was also in depression that I learned my own acreage, the full extent of my soul. When I am happy, I feel slightly distracted by happiness, as though it fails to use some part of my mind and brain that wants the exercise. Depression is something to do. My grasp tightens and becomes acute in moments of loss: I can see the beauty of glass objects fully at the moment when they slip from my hand toward the floor — Andrew Solomon

During my PhD, I was depressed for eight-months, state of deep-worry. The stressful life leads to neglect of spirituality and wellness. I recovered by inspiration of great souls, friends and family. Ever since, I have sought spirituality of soul and well-being over all other things. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Nobody would commit suicide if the pain of being inside herself, the agony of the sleepless, tortured hours spent watching the world get smaller and uglier, were bearable or could be relieved by other people telling her how they wanted her to feel. A depressed person is selfish because her self, the very core of who she is, will not leave her alone, and she can no more stop thinking about this self and how to escape it than a prisoner held captive by a sadistic serial killer can forget about the person who comes in to torture her everyday. Her body is brutalized by her mind. It hurts to breathe, eat, walk, think. The gross maneuverings of her limbs are so overwhelming, so wearying, that the fine muscle movements or quickness of wit necessary to write, to actually say something, are completely out of the question. — Stacy Pershall

Antidepressants. The thought of this girl actually being depressed made me want to grab the whole planet and throw it into the sun. Well, more than usual anyway. — David Wong

No one is depressed when they're asleep, which is why being in bed is such a safe place if you're really down. — Michael Redhill

One of the first signs of being depressed is that you lose interest in things. That's why I think it is important to stay passionate. — Nicolas Cage

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. — James Nesbitt

Certainly, I think being depressed is absolutely part of the human condition, it has to be, if there's joy there's its opposite, and it's something you ride if you possibly can. — Bob Geldof

I have vision boards, and people think that I put the vision board up and I look at it all the time, but what I do is, when I'm having an emotional time and I'm stressed out or feeling bad, I go to the store and get all the stuff for a vision board. Instead of channeling the negative thoughts or being depressed, I change it around and I start making boards. — Ester Dean

One of the risks of being quiet is that the other people can fill your silence with their own interpretation: You're bored. You're depressed. You're shy. You're stuck up. You're judgemental. When others can't read us, they write their own story - not always one we choose or that's true to who we are. — Sophia Dembling

I felt bad because Little Big Tom came in while we were making the tape and was like over the moon because he thought we were interested in his music. We had to humor him and listen to him deliver around six hundred speeches about fusion and the Art Ensemble of Chicago and Chicano and Latino influences on pretentious jazzy pseudorock. I think it was probably the happiest I'd ever seen him. And I also felt bad about the fact that after he left we kind of made fun of the funny way he said Latino, like he was the Frito Bandito or something. I felt bad, but I did it anyway, because I'm only human. I was ashamed of myself and depressed afterward, though, which is human, too, I guess. Being human is an excuse for just about everything, but it also kind of sucks in a way. — Frank Portman

People who are contented and serene sleep well. They fall asleep easily, stay asleep, and wake refreshed. Conversely, people who are anxious, stressed, or depressed do not sleep well, and chronic insomnia is strongly associated with mood disorders. These are clear correlations, but what is cause and what is effect is not clear. Most experts agree that sleep and mood are closely related, that healthy sleep can enhance emotional well-being, while insufficient quantity or quality of sleep can adversely affect it. — Andrew Weil

I'm starting to understand that attempting to be perfect has been the goal of my life. Our lives. Attempting to be this fault-free, smiling person in this loving, happy family that fits so perfectly in this pretty, inoffensive little town. What was so bad about that goal after all? Only that I couldn't do it. That I let everybody down. I've been so down about it, so depressed thinking about all the balls I was trying to juggle that I've dropped, and now the cogs are turning toward total apathy toward it all, everything and all I can think about is that I am a shell of a human being. I'm a pushover. I'm to blame. — Abigail Tarttelin