Quotes by Andrew Solomon

Now, its not that I think that being gay is the most amazing, wonderful thing in the world, but I have a husband; I have a life; I have friends who Ive met through this. Its who I am.

Fortunately for me, my mother loved travel. Our first non-beach family trip abroad - to England, France, and Switzerland - came when I was 11, and thereafter, we often tagged along on my fathers European business trips.

Travel is an exercise partly in broadening yourself and partly in defining your own limits.

I started traveling out of curiosity, but I have come to believe in travels political importance, that encouraging a nations citizenry to travel may be as important as encouraging school attendance, environmental conservation, or national thrift. You cannot understand the otherness of places you have not encountered.

Never forget that the truest luxury is imagination, and that being a writer gives you the leeway to exploit all of the imaginations curious intricacies, to be what you were, what you are, what you will be, and what everyone else is or was or will be, too.

People still ask my husband and me which of us is the mom - which, as one lesbian friend pointed out to me, is like asking which chopstick is the fork. This pressure on us to embody normative traditions can be paralysing.

When I was born, the wisdom was that homosexuality was an illness; that it was caused largely by somebodys mother, and a distorted relationship with the mother. And now, as I live my life - married to a husband, with kids - its an identity.

“Love is circumstantial; we can love anyone if need be; and losing the one we love is the singular catastrophe. Time does not heal it. Every present moment yearns for even the roughest past.”

“Antonin Artaud wrote on one of his drawings, Never real and always true, and that is how depression feels. You know that it is not real, that you are someone else, and yet you know that it is absolutely true.”

“While people argue with one another about the specifics of Freuds work and blame him for the prejudices of his time, they overlook the fundamental truth of his writing, his grand humility: that we frequently do not know our own motivations in life and are prisoners to what we cannot understand. We can recognize only a small fragment of our own, and an even smaller fragment of anyone elses, impetus.”

“It is important not to suppress your feelings altogether when you are depressed. It is equally important to avoid terrible arguments or expressions of outrage. You should steer clear of emotionally damaging behavior. People forgive, but it is best not to stir things up to the point at which forgiveness is required. When you are depressed, you need the love of other people, and yet depression fosters actions that destroy that love. Depressed people often stick pins into their own life rafts. The conscious mind can intervene. One is not helpless.”

“Listen to the people who love you. Believe that they are worth living for even when you dont believe it. Seek out the memories depression takes away and project them into the future. Be brave; be strong; take your pills. Exercise because its good for you even if every step weighs a thousand pounds. Eat when food itself disgusts you. Reason with yourself when you have lost your reason.”

“Depression is the flaw in love. To be creatures who love, we must be creatures who can despair at what we lose, and depression is the mechanism of that despair.”