{ "type": "topic", "site": { "name": "Leafy Quotes", "language": "en", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com" }, "formats": "Every page has two versions with the same data: JSON (the page address + .json) and markdown (the page address + .md). Append .json or .md to any `url` in this document.", "name": "depression", "slug": "depression", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/depression", "heading": "Quotes about depression", "json": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/depression.json", "markdown": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/depression.md", "quotes_count": 27, "authors_count": 16, "parent": null, "children": [], "quotes": [ { "id": "ff922680-3b49-4add-a25a-fca66e99aef6", "slug": "just-because-i-did", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/adrian-tchaikovsky/elder-race/just-because-i-did", "text": "Just because I did good doesn’t mean I don’t feel bad, because the feeling bad, it’s not particularly because of anything that’s happened, it’s just the way I’m wired.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Adrian Tchaikovsky", "slug": "adrian-tchaikovsky", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/adrian-tchaikovsky" }, "book": { "title": "Elder Race", "slug": "elder-race", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/adrian-tchaikovsky/elder-race" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 195, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "depression", "slug": "depression", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/depression" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Adrian_Tchaikovsky#Elder_Race_(2021)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:05:17" }, { "id": "fcb04fac-5ea0-4b85-a664-8bd3b8cd232f", "slug": "i-was-twenty-one", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/haruki-murakami/a-wild-sheep-chase/i-was-twenty-one", "text": "I was twenty-one at the time, about to turn twenty-two. No prospect of graduating soon, and yet no reason to quit school. Caught in the most curiously depressing circumstances. For months I'd been stuck, unable to take one step in any new direction. The world kept moving on; I alone was at a standstill. In the autumn, everything took on a desolate cast, the colors swiftly fading before my eyes. The sunlight, the smell of the grass, the faintest patter of rain, everything got on my nerves.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Haruki Murakami", "slug": "haruki-murakami", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/haruki-murakami" }, "book": { "title": "A Wild Sheep Chase", "slug": "a-wild-sheep-chase", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/haruki-murakami/a-wild-sheep-chase" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "youth", "slug": "youth", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/youth" }, { "name": "depression", "slug": "depression", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/depression" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/A_Wild_Sheep_Chase#Quotes", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:02:19" }, { "id": "92419453-af4f-4fae-ab4d-2c04a2474b4b", "slug": "she-knows-most", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/china-mieville/three-moments-of-an-explosion/she-knows-most", "text": "She knows most of this, to some extent, and she knows she’s depressed, but if knowing the problem was the solution, most patients wouldn’t need us at all.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "China Miéville", "slug": "china-mieville", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/china-mieville" }, "book": { "title": "Three Moments of an Explosion", "slug": "three-moments-of-an-explosion", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/china-mieville/three-moments-of-an-explosion" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 159, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "depression", "slug": "depression", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/depression" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/China_Mi%C3%A9ville#Three_Moments_of_an_Explosion_(2015)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:56:49" }, { "id": "79eedc38-894b-4e6d-b3e5-356c3f10a046", "slug": "i-suppose-an-optimistic", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/brandon-sanderson/elantris/i-suppose-an-optimistic", "text": "“I suppose an optimistic comment wouldn’t do much good right now.” Galladon smiled slightly. “Definitely not—you optimists just can’t understand that a depressed person doesn’t want you to try and cheer them up. It makes us sick.”", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Brandon Sanderson", "slug": "brandon-sanderson", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/brandon-sanderson" }, "book": { "title": "Elantris", "slug": "elantris", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/brandon-sanderson/elantris" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 324, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "optimism", "slug": "optimism", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/optimism" }, { "name": "depression", "slug": "depression", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/depression" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Brandon_Sanderson#Elantris_(2005)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:56:33" }, { "id": "126dc0e2-312b-454c-9e02-b8a5cfc2d1eb", "slug": "when-i-am-tired", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-s-hall/daily-negations/when-i-am-tired", "text": "When I am tired, it is easy to believe that my exhaustion is the reason I am depressed and lonely and uninspired. But when I am well-rested [sic], I can realize that these negative feelings are not a result of too little sleep. They are a result of my being a miserable, hopeless, misanthropic wretch.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "John S. Hall", "slug": "john-s-hall", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-s-hall" }, "book": { "title": "Daily Negations", "slug": "daily-negations", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-s-hall/daily-negations" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "humor", "slug": "humor", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humor" }, { "name": "depression", "slug": "depression", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/depression" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_S._Hall#Quotes_from_Daily_Negations_(2007)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:55:40" }, { "id": "3a44e860-02ad-406d-b8e0-766ddd230971", "slug": "depression-is-seductive", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-l-carter/the-emperor-of-ocean-park/depression-is-seductive", "text": "Depression is seductive: it offends and teases, frightens you and draws you in, tempting you with its promise of sweet oblivion, then overwhelming you with a nearly sexual power, squirming past your defenses, dissolving your will, invading the tired spirit so utterly that it becomes difficult to recall that you ever lived without it...or to imagine that you might live that way again. With all the guile of Satan himself, depression persuades you that its invasion was all your own idea, that you wanted it all along. It fogs the part of the brain that reasons, that knows right and wrong. It captures you with its warm, guilty, hateful pleasures, and, worst of all, it becomes familiar. All at once, you find yourself in thrall to the very thing that most terrifies you. Your work slides, your friendships slide, your marriage slides, but you scarcely notice: to be depressed is to be half in love with disaster.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Stephen L. Carter", "slug": "stephen-l-carter", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-l-carter" }, "book": { "title": "The Emperor of Ocean Park", "slug": "the-emperor-of-ocean-park", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-l-carter/the-emperor-of-ocean-park" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "depression", "slug": "depression", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/depression" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Stephen_L._Carter#The_Emperor_of_Ocean_Park_(2002)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:55:10" }, { "id": "0535e172-4b2a-4b40-86dd-a73ef7af44fe", "slug": "she-recognised-in-mr-honey", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/nevil-shute/no-highway/she-recognised-in-mr-honey", "text": "She recognised in Mr Honey a man of moods, capable of deep depression; all geniuses, she had read, were men like that.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Nevil Shute", "slug": "nevil-shute", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/nevil-shute" }, "book": { "title": "No Highway", "slug": "no-highway", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/nevil-shute/no-highway" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 166, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "genius", "slug": "genius", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/genius" }, { "name": "depression", "slug": "depression", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/depression" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Nevil_Shute#No_Highway_(1948)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:54:44" }, { "id": "b2fa8673-578b-464c-8e31-ad0a2345a52e", "slug": "the-so-called-psychotically", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-foster-wallace/infinite-jest/the-so-called-psychotically", "text": "The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn't do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life's assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire's flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It's not desiring the fall; it's terror of the flames. Yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling ‘Don‘t!’ and ‘Hang on!’, can understand the jump. Not really. You'd have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "David Foster Wallace", "slug": "david-foster-wallace", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-foster-wallace" }, "book": { "title": "Infinite Jest", "slug": "infinite-jest", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-foster-wallace/infinite-jest" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "suicide", "slug": "suicide", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/suicide" }, { "name": "depression", "slug": "depression", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/depression" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/David_Foster_Wallace#Infinite_Jest_(1996)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:50:35" }, { "id": "16bf10cc-5df6-4033-a4ff-8e21ed34abf8", "slug": "these-worst-mornings", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-foster-wallace/infinite-jest/these-worst-mornings", "text": "These worst mornings with cold floors and hot windows and merciless light—the soul’s certainty that the day will have to be not traversed but sort of climbed, vertically, and then that going to sleep again at the end of it will be like falling, again, off something tall and sheer.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "David Foster Wallace", "slug": "david-foster-wallace", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-foster-wallace" }, "book": { "title": "Infinite Jest", "slug": "infinite-jest", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-foster-wallace/infinite-jest" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "depression", "slug": "depression", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/depression" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/David_Foster_Wallace#Infinite_Jest_(1996)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:50:35" }, { "id": "1a75c1ac-8320-4d0c-8195-92590adca2db", "slug": "i-saw-that", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-fowles/daniel-martin/i-saw-that", "text": "I saw that I was from now on, for ever, contemptible. I had been and remained, intensely depressed, but I had also been, and always would be, intensely false; in existentialist terms, inauthentic. I knew I would never kill myself, I knew I would always want to go on living with myself, however hollow I became, however diseased.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "John Fowles", "slug": "john-fowles", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-fowles" }, "book": { "title": "Daniel Martin", "slug": "daniel-martin", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-fowles/daniel-martin" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "authenticity", "slug": "authenticity", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/authenticity" }, { "name": "depression", "slug": "depression", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/depression" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Fowles#Daniel_Martin_(1977)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:48:31" }, { "id": "370c5440-f092-4691-905b-f411df08d6e5", "slug": "the-more-depressed", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-derbyshire/we-are-doomed/the-more-depressed", "text": "The more depressed and maladjusted you are, the more likely it is that you are seeing things right, with minimal bias.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "John Derbyshire", "slug": "john-derbyshire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-derbyshire" }, "book": { "title": "We Are Doomed", "slug": "we-are-doomed", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-derbyshire/we-are-doomed" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "pessimism", "slug": "pessimism", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/pessimism" }, { "name": "depression", "slug": "depression", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/depression" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Derbyshire#We_Are_Doomed:_Reclaiming_Conservative_Pessimism_(2009)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:48:28" }, { "id": "f2ab329b-f1c6-42ea-835c-99eef4c00e76", "slug": "depression-is-a-disorder", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-styron/darkness-visible/depression-is-a-disorder", "text": "Depression is a disorder of mood, so mysteriously painful and elusive in the way it becomes known to the self — to the mediating intellect — as to verge close to being beyond description. It thus remains nearly incomprehensible to those who have not experienced it in its extreme mode, although the gloom, “the blues” which people go through occasionally and associate with the general hassle of everyday existence are of such prevalence that they do give many individuals a hint of the illness in its catastrophic form.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "William Styron", "slug": "william-styron", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-styron" }, "book": { "title": "Darkness Visible", "slug": "darkness-visible", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-styron/darkness-visible" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "depression", "slug": "depression", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/depression" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_Styron#Darkness_Visible_(1990)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:48:27" }, { "id": "cc011710-88f9-4a76-b013-2ab38633ee48", "slug": "there-is-a-region", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-styron/darkness-visible/there-is-a-region", "text": "There is a region in the experience of pain where the certainty of alleviation often permits superhuman endurance. We learn to live with pain in varying degrees daily, or over longer periods of time, and we are more often than not mercifully free of it. When we endure severe discomfort of a physical nature our conditioning has taught us since childhood to make accommodations to the pain’s demands — o accept it, whether pluckily or whimpering and complaining, according to our personal degree of stoicism, but in any case to accept it. Except in intractable terminal pain, there is almost always some form of relief; we look forward to that alleviation, whether it be through sleep or Tylenol or self-hypnosis or a change of posture or, most often, through the body’s capacity for healing itself, and we embrace this eventual respite as the natural reward we receive for having been, temporarily, such good sports and doughty sufferers, such optimistic cheerleaders for life at heart. In depression this faith in deliverance, in ultimate restoration, is absent. The pain is unrelenting, and what makes the condition intolerable is the foreknowledge that no remedy will come — not in a day, an hour, a month, or a minute. If there is mild relief, one knows that it is only temporary; more pain will follow. It is hopelessness even more than pain that crushes the soul. So the decision-making of daily life involves not, as in normal affairs, shifting from one annoying situation to another less annoying — or from discomfort to relative comfort, or from boredom to activity — but moving from pain to pain. One does not abandon, even briefly, one's bed of nails, but is attached to it wherever one goes.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "William Styron", "slug": "william-styron", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-styron" }, "book": { "title": "Darkness Visible", "slug": "darkness-visible", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-styron/darkness-visible" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "suffering", "slug": "suffering", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/suffering" }, { "name": "hope", "slug": "hope", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/hope" }, { "name": "depression", "slug": "depression", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/depression" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_Styron#Darkness_Visible_(1990)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:48:27" }, { "id": "a69a1899-83cc-4047-a0f5-58ecdd29e3d3", "slug": "i-had-now", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-styron/darkness-visible/i-had-now", "text": "I had now reached that phase of the disorder where all sense of hope had vanished, along with the idea of a futurity; my brain, in thrall to its outlaw hormones, had become less an organ of thought than an instrument registering, minute by minute, varying degrees of its own suffering.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "William Styron", "slug": "william-styron", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-styron" }, "book": { "title": "Darkness Visible", "slug": "darkness-visible", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-styron/darkness-visible" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "despair", "slug": "despair", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/despair" }, { "name": "depression", "slug": "depression", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/depression" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_Styron#Darkness_Visible_(1990)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:48:27" }, { "id": "9f590432-2b32-4b8c-a64c-7d1c5844eeff", "slug": "for-in-virtually", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-styron/darkness-visible/for-in-virtually", "text": "For in virtually any other serious sickness, a patient who felt similar devastation would be lying flat in bed, possibly sedated and hooked up to the tubes and wires of life-support systems, but at the very least in a posture of repose and in an isolated setting. His invalidism would be necessary, unquestioned and honorably attained. However, the sufferer from depression has no such option and therefore finds himself, like a walking casualty of war, thrust into the most intolerable social and family situations. There he must, despite the anguish devouring his brain, present a face approximating the one that is associated with ordinary events and companionship. He must try to utter small talk, and be responsive to questions, and knowingly nod and frown and, God help him, even smile.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "William Styron", "slug": "william-styron", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-styron" }, "book": { "title": "Darkness Visible", "slug": "darkness-visible", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-styron/darkness-visible" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "depression", "slug": "depression", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/depression" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_Styron#Darkness_Visible_(1990)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:48:27" }, { "id": "73f535f7-2319-4054-8ec7-51bc975624f2", "slug": "this-general-unawareness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-styron/darkness-visible/this-general-unawareness", "text": "This general unawareness of what depression is really like was apparent most recently in the matter of Primo Levi, the remarkable Italian writer and survivor of Auschwitz who, at the age of sixty-seven, hurled himself down a stairwell in Turin in 1987. Since my own involvement with the illness, I had been more than ordinarily interested in Levi’s death, and so, late in 1988, when I read an account in The New York Times about a symposium on the writer and his work held at New York University, I was fascinated but, finally, appalled. For, according to the article, many of the participants, worldly writers and scholars, seemed mystified by Levi’s suicide, mystified and disappointed. It was as if this man whom they had all so greatly admired, and who had endured so much at the hands of the Nazis — a man of exemplary resilience and courage — had by his suicide demonstrated a frailty, a crumbling of character they were loath to accept. In the face of a terrible absolute — self-destruction — their reaction was helplessness and (the reader could not avoid it) a touch of shame. My annoyance over all this was so intense that I was prompted to write a short piece for the op-ed page of the Times. The argument I put forth was fairly straightforward: the pain of severe depression is quite unimaginable to those who have not suffered it, and it kills in many instances because its anguish can no longer be borne. The prevention of many suicides will continue to be hindered until there is a general awareness of the nature of this pain. Through the healing process of time — and through medical intervention or hospitalization in many cases — most people survive depression, which may be its only blessing; but to the tragic legion who are compelled to destroy themselves there should be no more reproof attached than to the victims of terminal cancer.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "William Styron", "slug": "william-styron", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-styron" }, "book": { "title": "Darkness Visible", "slug": "darkness-visible", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-styron/darkness-visible" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "suicide", "slug": "suicide", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/suicide" }, { "name": "depression", "slug": "depression", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/depression" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_Styron#Darkness_Visible_(1990)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:48:27" }, { "id": "5068334f-00fa-49e1-97ed-f0299bc59ea3", "slug": "when-i-was-first", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-styron/darkness-visible/when-i-was-first", "text": "When I was first aware that I had been laid low by the disease, I felt a need, among other things, to register a strong protest against the word “depression.” Depression, most people know, used to be termed “melancholia,” a word which appears in English as early as the year 1303 and crops up more than once in Chaucer, who in his usage seemed to be aware of its pathological nuances. “Melancholia” would still appear to be a far more apt and evocative word for the blacker forms of the disorder, but it was usurped by a noun with a bland tonality and lacking any magisterial presence, used indifferently to describe an economic decline or a rut in the ground, a true wimp of a word for such a major illness. It may be that the scientist generally held responsible for its currency in modern times, a Johns Hopkins Medical School faculty member justly venerated — the Swiss-born psychiatrist Adolf Meyer — had a tin ear for the finer rhythms of English and therefore was unaware of the semantic damage he had inflicted by offering “depression” as a descriptive noun for such a dreadful and raging disease. Nonetheless, for over seventy-five years the word has slithered innocuously through the language like a slug, leaving little trace of its intrinsic malevolence and preventing, by its very insipidity, a general awareness of the horrible intensity of the disease when out of control. As one who has suffered from the malady in extremis yet returned to tell the tale, I would lobby for a truly arresting designation. “Brainstorm,” for instance, has unfortunately been preempted to describe, somewhat jocularly, intellectual inspiration. But something along these lines is needed. Told that someone’s mood disorder has evolved into a storm — a veritable howling tempest in the brain, which is indeed what a clinical depression resembles like nothing else — even the uninformed layman might display sympathy rather than the standard reaction that “depression” evokes, something akin to “So what?” or “You’ll pull out of it” or “We all have bad days.” The phrase “nervous breakdown” seems to be on its way out, certainly deservedly so, owing to its insinuation of a vague spinelessness, but we still seem destined to be saddled with “depression” until a better, sturdier name is created.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "William Styron", "slug": "william-styron", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-styron" }, "book": { "title": "Darkness Visible", "slug": "darkness-visible", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-styron/darkness-visible" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "language", "slug": "language", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language" }, { "name": "depression", "slug": "depression", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/depression" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_Styron#Darkness_Visible_(1990)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:48:27" }, { "id": "1391d2d7-19bb-4acf-ae7c-750e0d3d9c09", "slug": "for-those-who", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-styron/darkness-visible/for-those-who", "text": "For those who have dwelt in depression’s dark wood, and known its inexplicable agony, their return from the abyss is not unlike the ascent of the poet, trudging upward and upward out of hell’s black depths and at last emerging into what he saw as “the shining world.” There, whoever has been restored to health has almost always been restored to the capacity for serenity and joy, and this may be indemnity enough for having endured the despair beyond despair.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "William Styron", "slug": "william-styron", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-styron" }, "book": { "title": "Darkness Visible", "slug": "darkness-visible", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-styron/darkness-visible" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "hope", "slug": "hope", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/hope" }, { "name": "depression", "slug": "depression", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/depression" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_Styron#Darkness_Visible_(1990)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:48:27" }, { "id": "449b052f-75e2-494e-b2b0-858e6d2e1713", "slug": "in-paris-on-a-chilling", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-styron/darkness-visible/in-paris-on-a-chilling", "text": "In Paris on a chilling evening late in October of 1985 I first became fully aware that the struggle with the disorder in my mind — a struggle which had engaged me for several months — might have a fatal outcome.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "William Styron", "slug": "william-styron", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-styron" }, "book": { "title": "Darkness Visible", "slug": "darkness-visible", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-styron/darkness-visible" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "depression", "slug": "depression", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/depression" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_Styron#Darkness_Visible_(1990)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:48:26" }, { "id": "991749e1-7e59-4882-b30f-1090cf5c2459", "slug": "sometimes-sleep-gets", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-penn-warren/all-the-kings-men/sometimes-sleep-gets", "text": "Sometimes sleep gets to be a serious and complete thing. You stop going to sleep in order that you may be able to get up, but get up in order that you may be able to go back to sleep.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Robert Penn Warren", "slug": "robert-penn-warren", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-penn-warren" }, "book": { "title": "All the King's Men", "slug": "all-the-kings-men", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-penn-warren/all-the-kings-men" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "sleep", "slug": "sleep", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/sleep" }, { "name": "depression", "slug": "depression", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/depression" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/All_the_King's_Men#Chapter_2", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:47:58" }, { "id": "a59c280f-7128-4dfc-bc26-ff4ef80fb1dd", "slug": "i-myself-cried", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gloria-steinem/my-life-on-the-road/i-myself-cried", "text": "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.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Gloria Steinem", "slug": "gloria-steinem", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gloria-steinem" }, "book": { "title": "My Life on the Road", "slug": "my-life-on-the-road", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gloria-steinem/my-life-on-the-road" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "women", "slug": "women", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/women" }, { "name": "anger", "slug": "anger", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/anger" }, { "name": "feminism", "slug": "feminism", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/feminism" }, { "name": "depression", "slug": "depression", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/depression" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Gloria_Steinem#My_Life_on_The_Road_(2015)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:47:49" }, { "id": "bf59d521-2297-4cd7-928f-3045b5c613b4", "slug": "how-did-i-know", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/sylvia-plath/the-bell-jar/how-did-i-know", "text": "How did I know that someday — at college, in Europe, somewhere, anywhere — the bell jar, with its stifling distortions, wouldn’t descend again?", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Sylvia Plath", "slug": "sylvia-plath", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/sylvia-plath" }, "book": { "title": "The Bell Jar", "slug": "the-bell-jar", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/sylvia-plath/the-bell-jar" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "fear", "slug": "fear", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/fear" }, { "name": "depression", "slug": "depression", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/depression" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Sylvia_Plath#The_Bell_Jar_(1963)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:47:42" }, { "id": "2ebc21ab-d770-40d3-a61b-c5572ac12f62", "slug": "to-the-person", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/sylvia-plath/the-bell-jar/to-the-person", "text": "To the person in the bell jar, blank and stopped as a dead baby, the world itself is the bad dream.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Sylvia Plath", "slug": "sylvia-plath", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/sylvia-plath" }, "book": { "title": "The Bell Jar", "slug": "the-bell-jar", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/sylvia-plath/the-bell-jar" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "depression", "slug": "depression", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/depression" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Sylvia_Plath#The_Bell_Jar_(1963)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:47:42" }, { "id": "8b14d6f3-838d-4855-84e4-de297c3c4b66", "slug": "the-silence-depressed", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/sylvia-plath/the-bell-jar/the-silence-depressed", "text": "The silence depressed me. It wasn't the silence of silence. It was my own silence. I knew perfectly well the cars were making a noise, and the people in them and behind the lit windows of the buildings were making a noise, and the river was making a noise, but I couldn't hear a thing. The city hung in my window, flat as a poster, glittering and blinking, but it might just as well not have been there at all, for the good it did me.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Sylvia Plath", "slug": "sylvia-plath", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/sylvia-plath" }, "book": { "title": "The Bell Jar", "slug": "the-bell-jar", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/sylvia-plath/the-bell-jar" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "silence", "slug": "silence-2", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/silence-2" }, { "name": "depression", "slug": "depression", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/depression" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Sylvia_Plath#The_Bell_Jar_(1963)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:47:41" }, { "id": "635c8c47-bebc-4b62-8d8a-eb55f3eb1f44", "slug": "wherever-i-sat", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/sylvia-plath/the-bell-jar/wherever-i-sat", "text": "Wherever I sat — on the deck of a ship or at a street café in Paris or Bangkok — I would be sitting under the same glass bell jar, stewing in my own sour air.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Sylvia Plath", "slug": "sylvia-plath", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/sylvia-plath" }, "book": { "title": "The Bell Jar", "slug": "the-bell-jar", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/sylvia-plath/the-bell-jar" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "depression", "slug": "depression", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/depression" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Sylvia_Plath#The_Bell_Jar_(1963)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:47:41" }, { "id": "dbc40da7-f164-43e5-b0a3-c1a93fc28f7f", "slug": "when-i-started", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-j-lynch/catching-the-big-fish/when-i-started", "text": "When I started meditating, I was filled with anxieties and fears. I felt a sense of depression and anger. I often took out this anger on my first wife. After I had been meditating for about two weeks, she came to me and said, \"What's going on?\" I was quiet for a moment. But finally I said, \"What do you mean?\" And she said, \"This anger, where did it go?\" And I hadn't even realized that it had lifted. I call that depression and anger the Suffocating Rubber Clown Suit of Negativity. It's suffocating, and that rubber stinks. But once you start meditating and diving within, the clown suit starts to dissolve. You finally realize how putrid was the stink when it starts to go. Then, when it dissolves, you have freedom. Anger and depression and sorrow are beautiful things in a story, but they are like poison to the filmmaker or artist. They are like a vise grip on creativity. If you're in that grip, you can hardly get out of bed, much less experience the flow of creativity and ideas. You must have clarity to create. You have to be able to catch ideas.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "David J. Lynch", "slug": "david-j-lynch", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-j-lynch" }, "book": { "title": "Catching the Big Fish", "slug": "catching-the-big-fish", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-j-lynch/catching-the-big-fish" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 8, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "anger", "slug": "anger", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/anger" }, { "name": "depression", "slug": "depression", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/depression" }, { "name": "meditation", "slug": "meditation", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/meditation" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/David_Lynch#Catching_the_Big_Fish_(2006)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:40:58" }, { "id": "9c90a1d3-e3fd-4a78-8513-8ee8ad205368", "slug": "to-get-up-in-the", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/emil-cioran/the-trouble-with-being-born/to-get-up-in-the", "text": "To get up in the morning, wash and then wait for some unforeseen variety of dread or depression. I would give the whole universe and all of Shakespeare for a grain of ataraxy.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Emil Cioran", "slug": "emil-cioran", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/emil-cioran" }, "book": { "title": "The Trouble With Being Born", "slug": "the-trouble-with-being-born", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/emil-cioran/the-trouble-with-being-born" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "peace of mind", "slug": "peace-of-mind", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/peace-of-mind" }, { "name": "depression", "slug": "depression", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/depression" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Emil_Cioran#The_Trouble_With_Being_Born_(1973)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:39:41" } ] }