He, like my father, had a deep love for natural science, and he would discuss at length how physics, philosophy, and mathematics were, each in their own ways, jealous mistresses who required absolute...
Grief said C.S. Lewis is like a winding valley where any bend may reveal a totally new landscape. This is so. The lessons that come from grief come from its unexpected moves, from its shifting views o...
From the time I woke up in the morning until the time I went to bed at night, I was unbearably miserable and seemingly incapable of any kind of joy or enthusiasm. Everything--every thought, word, move...
Exuberance, Cheng makes clear, is an indispensable part of his scientific life. It keeps me alive. I like to have fun, I don't like boredom. Exuberance is necessary, you have to have enthusiasm. Any k...
Eventually, the depression went away of its own accord, but only long enough for it to regroup and mobilize for the next attack.
Discovery, however divine or intoxicating, is just one aspect of scientific exuberance, however. Science is also driven by curiosity and an enthusiastic restlessness, hastened forward by a drive to ex...
Cocaine, hashish, opium, Ecstacy: all seduce with the promise of rapture or exuberance-and then they collect.
But it has been precisely that persevering steadiness of my mother, her belief in seeing things through, and her great ability to love and learn, listen and change, that helped keep me alive through a...
Generals outrank colonels who, in turn, outrank majors and captains and lieutenants, and everyone, but everyone, outranks children. Within the ranks of children, boys always outrank girls. One way of...
Time does not heal,It makes a half-stitched scarThat can be broken and again you feelGrief as total as in its first hour.-Elizabeth Jennings
كبرت بسرعة خلال تلك الشهور, كما يجب علي الشخص الذي يفقد ذاته, و يكون قريبا هكذا من الموت و من الحفرة الأخيرة
الجامعة بالنسبة لأكثر الناس الذين عرفتهم كانت أفضل سنوات حياتهم، لم يكن ذلك هو الحال معي. الجامعة في معظمها بالنسبة لي كانت كفاحًا فضيعًا ، و كوابيس متكررة من الأمزجة العنيفة و المُفزعة، تتناوب لمدة أ...
Seemed to myself to be dull, boring, inadequate, thick brained, unlit, unresponsive, chill skinned, bloodless, and sparrow drab.
Posthumous Piano Sonata in B-flat, D. 960. Its haunting,
Lost a great innocence when I understood that I and my mind were not going to be on good terms for the rest of my life. I can’t tell you how tired I am of character-building experiences. But I treasur...
Knew better than to assume a straight shot at happiness: If we see a light at the end of the tunnel, he said, it’s the light of an oncoming train.
For manics anyway, mania is a natural extension of the economy.
Before you can conquer a beast you first must make it beautiful. In some strange way, I have tried to do that with manic-depressive illness. It has been a fascinating, albeit deadly, enemy and compani...
There is no easy way to tell other people that you have manic-depressive illness; if there is, I haven’t found it.
Then, suddenly, I was unpredictably and uncontrollably irrational and destructive. This was not something that could be overcome by protocol or etiquette. God, conspicuously, was nowhere to be found.