Depression is a disorder of mood, so mysteriously painful and…

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.

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Darkness Visible (1990)

Other William Styron Quotes

When, in the autumn of 1947, I was fired from the first and only job I have ever held, I wanted one thing out of life: to become a writer. I left my position as manuscript reader at the McGraw-Hill Book Company with no regrets; the job had been onerous and boring. It did not occur to me that there would be many difficulties to impede my ambition; in fact, the job itself had been an impediment. All I knew was that I burned to write a novel and I could not have cared less that my bank account was close to zero, with no replenishment in sight. At the age of twenty-two I had such pure hopes in my ability to write not just a respectable first novel, but a novel that would be completely out of the ordinary, that when I left the McGraw-Hill Building for the last time I felt the exultancy of a man just released from slavery and ready to set the universe on fire. - View Quote Details on When, in the autumn of 1947, I was fired from…
Her thought process dwindled, ceased. Then she felt her legs crumple. “I can’t choose! I can’t choose!” - View Quote Details on Her thought process dwindled, ceased. Then she felt her legs…
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. - View Quote Details on In Paris on a chilling evening late in October of…
The good writing of any age has always been the product of someone’s neurosis, and we’d have a mighty dull literature if all the writers that came along were a bunch of happy chuckleheads. - View Quote Details on The good writing of any age has always been the…
In Vineyard Haven, on Martha’s Vineyard, mostly I love the soft collision here of harbor and shore, the subtly haunting briny quality that all small towns have when they are situated on the sea. - View Quote Details on In Vineyard Haven, on Martha’s Vineyard, mostly I love the…
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. - View Quote Details on My brain, in thrall to its outlaw hormones, had become…
A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading it. - View Quote Details on A great book should leave you with many experiences, and…
Writers ever since writing began have had problems, and the main problem narrows down to just one word — life. Certainly this might be an age of so-called faithlessness and despair we live in, but the new writers haven’t cornered any market on faithlessness and despair, any more than Dostoyevsky or Marlowe or Sophocles did. Every age has its terrible aches and pains, its peculiar new horrors, and every writer since the beginning of time, just like other people, has been afflicted by what that same friend of mine calls “the fleas of life”—you know, colds, hangovers, bills, sprained ankles, and little nuisances of one sort or another. They are the constants of life, at the core of life, along with nice little delights that come along every now and then. - View Quote Details on Writers ever since writing began have had problems, and the…
I get a fine warm feeling when I’m doing well, but that pleasure is pretty much negated by the pain of getting started each day. Let’s face it, writing is hell. - View Quote Details on I get a fine warm feeling when I’m doing well,…
The madness of depression is the antithesis of violence. It is a storm indeed, but a storm of murk. Soon evident are the slowed-down responses, near paralysis, psychic energy throttled back close to zero. Ultimately, the body is affected and feels sapped, drained. - View Quote Details on The madness of depression is the antithesis of violence. It…