Oh yes, I certainly have low days. I feel that in treating the depression, it’s not so much that I’ve become happier as it is that I can be unhappy in better ways. Andrew Solomon Read Quote
Parenting involves two separate activities. You have to change your child in that you need to educate your child and instill moral values in them. But you also need to celebrate your child for who he or she is and make them feel really good. Andrew Solomon Read Quote
I think that people are most comfortable when the world is orderly. I think there’s the sense that when you begin questioning basic distinctions, such as the distinction between being male and being female, it represents a threat to the social order. Andrew Solomon Read Quote
Latino kids are not rejected by their parents for being Latino, nor are most Muslims disowned by their parents for being Muslims, but those who are gay are often the target of their families’ disapprobation or outright hostility. Andrew Solomon Read Quote
The worst mistake anyone can make is to perceive anyone else as lesser. The deeper you look into other souls – and writing is primarily an exercise in doing just that – the clearer people’s inherent dignity becomes. Andrew Solomon Read Quote
Never forget that the truest luxury is imagination, and that being a writer gives you the leeway to exploit all of the imagination’s 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. Andrew Solomon Read Quote
No perfectionist has ever met his own benchmarks, and no one so famished for admiration has ever received enough of it. Andrew Solomon Read Quote
Most people imagine that resolving particular problems will make them happy. If only one had more money, or love, or success, then life would feel manageable. It can be devastating to realize the falseness of such tempered optimism. Andrew Solomon Read Quote
A great hope gets crushed every time someone reminds us that happiness can be neither assumed nor earned; that we are all prisoners of our own flawed brains; that the ultimate aloneness in each of us is, finally, inviolable. Andrew Solomon Read Quote
I’m endlessly intrigued by stories, and I love helping someone to formulate his or her story. I can drift off when I’m reading pure abstraction, but the narratives of human lives hold my attention every time. Andrew Solomon Read Quote
