Quotes from Andrew Solomon

If the earth could feed itself and us without rain, and if we conquered the weather and declared permanent sun, would we not miss grey days and summer storms?

Sometimes, the hallucinations are visual and olfactory was well and make the world full of actual threats into a writhing hell of inescapable terrorization. Though many schizophrenics become curiously attached to their delusions, the fading of the nondelusional world puts them in lonelineness beyond all reckoning… between 5 and 13 percent of people with schizophrenia commit suicide.

Depression is itself destructive, and it breeds destructive impulses: I am easily disappointed in people who don't get it and sometimes make the mistake of telling off those who don't get it and those who have frustrated me. After any given depression, there's the need for a lot of cleanup. I remember that I love friends I had thought of letting go. I try to rebuild what I have wasted.

In the United States, 150,000 people with schizophrenia are homeless; one in five people with schizophrenia is homeless in any given year.

At least three times as many mentally ill people are in jail as are in hospitals.

Cerebral palsy is any disability caused by damage to the cerebrum before birth, just afterward, or in the first three years of life.

An untreated severe cleft palate can have dire consequences and is undeniably a disability. But there is no simple equation whereby the existence of the fix means that the condition is no longer a disability; rectifying a condition is not the same thing as forestalling

Thinking seems to me less persuasive evidence of being than does choosing. Not in our chemistry and not in circumstance does our humanity lie, but in our will to work with the technologies available to us through the era in which we live, through our own character, through our circumstances and age.

But parents may also seek surgical fixes because they feel like they will know how to be a parent to that child, whereas

From the beginning, we tempt them into imitation of us and long for what may be life's most profound compliment: their choosing to live according to our own system of values. Though many of us take pride in how different we are from our parents, we are endlessly sad at how different our children are from us.

Religion provides answers to unanswerable questions. It cannot usually pull people out of depression; indeed

We applaud the great strides made through genetic identification research, however, we do not condone the use of such information for eugenics and related purposes...The question of what lives are worth living is now answered in doctors' offices instead of in Nazis' T-4 programme. The forces of normalisation seem to be gaining ground.

Ne exprim?m iubirea, deoarece satisfacÈ›ia adus? de iubire este enorm?, È™i continu?m s? ne exprim?m iubirea È™i s? acÈ›ion?m protector, deoarece pierderea iubirii e traumatizant?. Dac? n-am simÈ›i durere la pierderea fiinÈ›ei iubite, dac? am avea pl?cerea iubirii, dar n-am simÈ›i nimic când obiectul iubirii noastre e ruin?, am fi considerabil mai puÈ›in protectori decât suntem.

All kinds of attributes make one less able. Illiteracy and poverty are disabilities, and so are stupidity, obesity, and boringness. Extreme age and extreme youth are both disabilities. Faith is a disability insofar as it constrains you from self-interest; atheism is a disability inasmuch as it shields you from hope. One might see power as a disability, too, for the isolation in which it imprisons those who wield it.

No estamos deprimidos por haber quedado apartados de lo que queremos, sino porque nos hemos fusionado con eso que queremos.

Mothering requires two impulses- the impulse to hold on, and the impulse to push away.

We are all differently abled from one another, and context—which is socially constructed—often decides what will be protected and indulged.

A prodigy is a group enterprise.

A mature childhood can be a recipe for an immature adulthood—a principle most publicly borne out by Michael Jackson.

Some parents manufacture an affirmative construction of their child's disability to disguise their despair, while others have a deep and genuine experience of joy in caring for disabled children, and that sometimes the first stance can generate the second.

The sprinter unwisely indulges his arrogance against the marathon runner, and likewise, parents who encourage their children's narcissism do them no favours. It is best to accomplish something before becoming famous, because if the fame comes first, it often precludes accomplishment...You don't build a career by playing Carnegie Hall. You build a career and then Carnegie Hall will invite you to play.

Looking at depression among the poor, we can see that taboos and prejudices are blocking us from helping a population that is singularly receptive to that help.

The problem of depression among the poor leads naturally into specific politics. We legislate ideas of illness and treatment in and out of existence.

Aunque muchos de nosotros nos sentimos orgullosos de lo diferentes que somos de nuestros padres, nos entristece lo diferentes que nuestros hijos son de nosotros.