The pain of severe depression is quite unimaginable to those who have not suffered it. William Styron More Quotes by William Styron More Quotes From William Styron For a person whose sole burning ambition is to write - like myself - college is useless beyond the Sophomore year. William Styron ambition college writing 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. William Styron autumn jobs firsts 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. William Styron paris struggle mind I think that the best of my generation...have reversed the customary rules of the game and have grown more radical as they have gotten older - a disconcerting but healthy sign. To be sure, there are many youngish old fogies around and even the most illustrious of these, William Buckley, is blessed by a puzzling, recondite but undeniable charm, almost as if beneath that patrician exterior an egalitarian was signaling to get out. William Styron blessed games thinking The weather of Depression is unmodulated, its light a brownout. William Styron light depression weather In the absence of hope we must still struggle to survive, and so we do-by the skin of our teeth. William Styron teeth skins struggle Many of the artifacts of my house had become potential devices for my own destruction: the attic rafters (and an outside maple or two) a means to hang myself, the garage a place to inhale carbon monoxide, the bathtub a vessel to receive the flow from my opened arteries. The kitchen knives in their drawers had but one purpose for me. William Styron knives two mean Nonfiction writers are second-class citizens, the Ellis Island of literature. We just can't quite get in. And yes, it pisses me off. William Styron citizens islands class My life and work have been far from free of blemish, and so I think it would be unpardonable for a biographer not to dish up the dirt. William Styron dirt would-be thinking I discovered that I had, in the past two decades, written a far greater amount in the essay form than I remembered. Certainly I have written enough of it to demonstrate that I harbor no disdain for literary journalism or just plain journalism, under whose sponsorship I have been able to express much that has fascinated me, or alarmed me, or amused me, or otherwise engaged my attention when I was not writing a book. William Styron writing book past The stigma of self-inflicted death is for some people a hateful blot that demands erasure at all costs. William Styron suicide self people It's fine therapy for people who are perpetually scared of nameless threats as I am most of the time — for jittery people. William Styron scared writing people Perhaps the critics are right: this generation may not produce literature equal to that of any past generation-who cares? The writer will be dead before anyone can judge him-but he must go on writing, reflecting disorder, defeat, despair, should that be all he sees at the moment, but ever searching for the elusive love, joy, and hope-qualities which, as in the act of life itself, are best when they have to be struggled for, and are not commonly come by with much ease, either by a critic's formula or by a critic's yearning. William Styron judging writing past 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 numbness normal body And when you get an eminent journal like Time magazine complaining, as it often has, that to the young writers of today life seems short on rewards and that what they write is a product of their own neuroses, in its silly way the magazine is merely stating the status quo and obvious truth. 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. William Styron today-life silly writing I felt the exultancy of a man just released from slavery and ready to set the universe on fire. William Styron burning fire men I think it's unfortunate to have critics for friends. William Styron friends critics thinking A disruption of the circadian cycle—the metabolic and glandular rhythms that are central to our workaday life—seems to be involved in many, if not most, cases of depression; this is why brutal insomnia so often occurs and is most likely why each day’s pattern of distress exhibits fairly predictable alternating periods of intensity and relief. William Styron relief patterns insomnia We would have to settle for the elegant goal of becoming ourselves. William Styron becoming goal acceptance This was not judgment day - only morning. Morning: excellent and fair. William Styron judgment excellent morning
