Below you will find some of my
favourite poems, quotes, books and films, many of which inspired me to write A Note of
Madness, many of which helped me through my own struggle with depression. To find more books about mental illness (either fiction or
non-fiction), go to Amazon and click on the categories - Social Issues: Fiction and Teen Issues: Non-fiction
Sorrow
Sorrow like a ceaseless rain
Beats upon my heart.
People twist and scream in pain,
Dawn will find them still again;
This has neither wax nor wane,
Neither stop nor start.
People dress and go to town;
I sit in my chair.
All my thoughts are slow and brown:
Standing up or sitting down
Little matters, or what gown
Or what shoes I wear.
Edna St. Vincent
Millay |
I Measure Every Grief I Meet
I measure every grief I meet
With analytic eyes;
I wonder if it weighs like mine,
Or has an easier size.
I wonder if they bore it long,
Or did it just begin?
I could not tell the date of mine,
It feels so old a pain.
I wonder if it hurts to live,
And if they have to try,
And whether, could they choose between,
They would not rather die.
I wonder if when years have piled
Some thousands on the cause
Of early hurt, if such a lapse
Could give them any pause;
Or would they go on aching still
Through centuries above,
Enlightened to a larger pain
By contrast with the love.
Emily Dickinson | Goodbye!
Falling leaf and fading tree,
Lines of white in a sullen sea,
Shadows rising on you and me;
Shadows rising on you and me;
The swallows are making them ready to fly,
Wheeling out on a windy sky.
Goodbye Summer! Goodbye! Goodbye!
Goodbye Summer! Goodbye! Goodbye!
Hush! a voice from the far away!
"Listen and learn," it seems to say,
"All the tomorrows shall be as today."
"All the tomorrows shall be as today."
The cord is frayed, the cruse is dry,
The link must break, and the lamp must die
Goodbye to Hope! Goodbye! Goodbye!
Goodbye to Hope! Goodbye! Goodbye!
What are we waiting for? Oh, my heart!
Kiss me straight on the brows and part
Again, again! My heart, my heart!
What are we waiting for, you and I?
A pleading look, a stifled cry.
Goodbye, forever! Goodbye, forever!
Goodbye! Goodbye! Goodbye!
George John Whyte-Melville
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| Chanson
d'automne
Les sanglots longs
Des violons
De l'automne
Blessent mon coeur
D'une langueur
Monotone.
Tout suffocant
Et blême, quand
Sonne l'heure,
Je me souviens
Des jours anciens
Et je pleure,
Et je m'en vais
Au vent mauvais
Qui m'emporte
Deçà, delà
Pareil à la
Feuille morte.
Paul Verlaine | | Demain, dès l'aubeDemain, dès l'aube, à l'heure où blanchit la campagne,
Je partirai. Vois-tu, je sais que tu m'attends.
J'irai par la forêt, j'irai par la montagne.
Je ne puis demeurer loin de toi plus longtemps.
Je marcherai les yeux fixés sur mes pensées,
Sans rien voir au dehors, sans entendre aucun bruit,
Seul, inconnu, le dos courbé, les mains croisées,
Triste, et le jour pour moi sera comme la nuit.
Je ne regarderai ni l'or du soir qui tombe,
Ni les voiles au loin descendant vers Harfleur,
Et quand j'arriverai, je mettrai sur ta tombe
Un bouquet de houx vert et de bruyère en fleur. Victor Hugo
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Quotes About Madness
'In a mad world only the mad are sane.' Akira Kurosawa
'The courage of the poet is to keep ajar the door that leads into madness.' Christopher Morley
'There is no great genius without some touch of madness.' Seneca
'Too
much sanity may be madness and the maddest of all, to see life as it is
and not as it should be.' Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
'Madness is to think of too many things in succession too fast, or of one thing too exclusively.' Voltaire
'Writing
is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those, who do not
write, compose, or paint can manage to escape the madness, the
melancholia, the panic fear, which is inherent in a human condition.'
Graham Greene
'Sanity calms, but madness is more interesting.' John Russell
'Science has not yet taught us if madness is or is not the sublimity of the intelligence.' Edgar Allan Poe
'I
am interested in madness. I believe it is the biggest thing in the
human race, and the most constant. How do you take away from a man his
madness without also taking away his identity?' William Saroyan
'Follow your inner moonlight; don't hide the madness.' Allen Ginsberg
'What is madness but nobility of soul at odds with circumstance?' Theodore Roethke
'Pain
is real when you get other people to believe in it. If no one believes
in it but you, your pain is madness or hysteria.' Naomi Wolf
'No great genius has ever existed without some touch of madness.' Aristotle
'What
can you do against the lunatic who is more intelligent than yourself,
who gives your arguments a fair hearing and then simply persists in his
lunacy?' George Orwell
'Insanity doesn't run in my family. It gallops.' Cary Grant
'I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.' Edgar Allan Poe
'For me, insanity is super sanity. The normal is psychotic. Normal means lack of imagination, lack of creativity.' Jean Dubuffet
'Everything
great in the world is done by neurotics; they alone founded our
religions and created our masterpieces.' Marcel Proust
'Insanity destroys reason, but not wit.' Nathaniel Emmons
'I
quite agree with Dr. Nordau's assertion that all men of genius are
insane, but Dr. Nordeau forgets that all sane people are idiots.' Oscar
Wilde
'The statistics on sanity are
that one out of every 4 Americans are suffering from some form of
mental illness. Think of your three best friends. If they're okay, then
it's you.' Rita Mae Brown
'You're only given a little spark of madness. You mustn't lose it.' Robin Williams
'We are all born mad. Some remain so.' Samuel Beckett
'Honesty is the best policy, but insanity is a better defense.' Steve Landesberg
'There is no insanity so devastating in man's life as utter sanity.' William Allen White
'Ordinarily he was insane, but he had lucid moments when he was merely stupid.' Heinrich Heine
'Truly great madness cannot be achieved without significant intelligence.' Henrik Tikkanen
'Dreaming permits each and every one of us to be quietly and safely insane every night of our lives.' William Dement
'A person needs a little madness, or else they never dare cut the rope and be free.' Nikos Kazantzakis
'The extreme limit of wisdom, that's what the public calls madness.' Jean Cocteau
'It is the act of a madman to pursue impossibilities.' Marcus Aurelius
'People
often write me and ask how I keep my wood floors so clean when I live
with a child and a dog, and my answer is that I use a technique called
Suffering From a Mental Illness.' Heather Armstrong
'It
is noteworthy that persons are pronounced mad by officials destitute of
evidence that they themselves are sane.' Ambrose Bierce
'And of course you are mad, if by a madman we mean a mind that questions and rejects every civilized norm.' Stephen Fry
'A
large proportion of my best friends are a little bit crazy. … I try to
be cautious with my friends who are too sane. Depression is itself
destructive, and it breeds destructive impulses: I am easily
disappointed in people who don't get it.' Andrew Solomon, The Noonday
Demon
'Melancholy men, of all others, are the most witty.' Aristotle
'I
may be a lunatic, but then, wasn't my lunacy caused by a monster that
lurks at the bottom of every human mind? Those who call me a madman and
spurn me may become lunatics tomorrow. They harbor the same monster.'
Akutagawa Ryunosuke
'Insight is often mistaken for madness.' Dr. Who
'Anybody remotely interesting is mad, in some way or another.' Dr. Who
'Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you mad.' Raymond M. Weaver
'Did
the hospital specialize in poets and singers, or was it that poets and
singers specialized in madness?' Susanna Kaysen, Girl, Interrupted |
Depression
The Hours by Michael Cunningham (adult fiction)
Bipolar disorder (also known as manic-depression)
Schizophrenia
Self-harm
Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)
Eating disorders
Wasted by Marya Hornbacher (adult, memoir)
Addiction
Bereavement
Mental illness and the artistic temperament
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