I felt a kind of numbness, an enervation, but more particularly an odd fragility - as if my body had actually become frail, hypersensitive and somehow disjointed and clumsy, lacking normal coordination. And soon I was in the throes of a pervasive hypochondria.

William Styron

Categorized in : Body Normal Numbness

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.

painful self way

What this country needs... what this great land of ours needs is something to happen to it. Something ferocious and tragic, like what happened to Jericho or the cities of the plain - something terrible I mean, son, so that when the people have been through hellfire and the crucible, and have suffered agony enough and grief, they’ll be people again, human beings, not a bunch of smug contented cows rooting at the trough.

grief mean country

A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading.

inspiring inspirational life

The writer's duty is to keep on writing. by William Styron

The writer's duty is to keep on writing.

duty writing

The pain is unrelenting; one does not abandon, even briefly, one's bed of nails, but is attached to it wherever one goes.

bed pain suffering

Which is worse, past or future? Neither. I will fold up my mind like a leaf and drift on this stream over the brink.

suffering mind past

The mornings themselves were becoming bad now as I wandered by William Styron

The mornings themselves were becoming bad now as I wandered

fog sleep morning

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.

cancer healing depression

Reading - the best state yet to keep absolute loneliness at bay. by William Styron

Reading - the best state yet to keep absolute loneliness at bay.

library loneliness reading

The pain of 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.

prevention pain suicide

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.

pain feelings writing

I have learned to cry again and I think perhaps that means I am a human being again. Perhaps that at least. A piece of human being but, yes, a human being.

sadness mean thinking

[However], the sufferer from depression has no option, and therefore finds himself, like a walking casualty of war, thrust into the most intolerable social and family situations. There he must ... present a face approximating the one 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.

events trying war

The pain of severe depression is quite unimaginable to those who... by William Styron

The pain of severe depression is quite unimaginable to those who have not suffered it.

anguish unimaginable pain

I try to get a feeling of what's going on in the story before I put it down on paper, but actually most of this breaking-in period is one long, fantastic daydream, in which I think about anything but the work at hand. I can't turn out slews of stuff each day. I wish I could. I seem to have some neurotic need to perfect each paragrapheach sentence, evenas I go along.

writing hands thinking

we each devise our means of escape from the intolerable. by William Styron

we each devise our means of escape from the intolerable.

mean

From the writer's point of view, critics should be ignored, although it's hard not to do what they suggest. I think it's unfortunate to have critics for friends. Suppose you write something that stinks, what are they going to say in a review? Say it stinks? So if they're honest, they do, and if you were friends you're still friends, but the knowledge of your lousy writing and their articulate admission of it will be always something between the two of you, like the knowledge between a man and his wife of some shady adultery.

writing men thinking

It is hopelessness even more than pain that crushes the soul. by William Styron

It is hopelessness even more than pain that crushes the soul.

crush pain depression

Let's face it, writing is hell. by William Styron

Let's face it, writing is hell.

hell faces writing

The madness of depression is, generally speaking, 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.

psychics zero depression