That Is Life. Quotes

I write more with the words I leave out.

... since the history of words is a mainspring of our intellectual and emotional character.

Every word the right one and exactly where it should be. That's basically the highest compliment I can give.

Pray. Not just with your words, but with your actions.

The words explain us all, each having a meaning in a meantime: every time for a lifetime.

I like the sound of words, but I don't ever really expect my slow, slanted impression of the world to change by what I read.

In addition to my other numerous acquaintances, I have one more intimate confidant… My depression is the most faithful mistress I have known — no wonder, then, that I return the love.

I did the only thing I knew how to do: I built my own walls of silence to disguise my desperation and what later came to be recognized and diagnosed as depression.

I thought by masking the depression with silence, the feelings might disappear.

I sit in front of the notebook and feel like it’s just too late for me. And that this book isn’t working, nothing’s working, everything feels like it’s made of spiders.

There are so many things I dare not say I have quietly stopped being me.

A message for those of you who contemplate permanent solutions to temporary problems. You never know what could be coming in the future. There is so much music you've yet to hear.

Depressed states can make us feel like we're constantly fighting against ourselves but we must engage in that fight for ourselves.

I'm a Polaroid developing in reverse

Render unto meditation the things that are meditation’s, and unto medication the things that are medication’s.

Having to admit that you are depressed makes one feel less than. Broken. Yes, that's what it is. Broken.

Light existed all along. Of course it did. Who says it didn't because I couldn't see it?

I had been too tired and too sick with melancholy to ride my bike, knowing full well that riding my bike was a cure.

John Hay points to our our history of getting lost in suffering when, "so close together were pain and antidote.

They rolled up the maps of their bodies until they were two continents of interlocking roads and rivers and dreams, and she thought, ‘This is how I will learn to live again’.

Once I had been introduced to depression, I realized if I wanted to help my friend and preserve our friendship, I needed to understand what the illness was all about.

Depression means self-loathing, self-disgust, and the kind of emotional numbness that feels like psychic death.

The key to happiness is being happy with who you are and enjoying the life you are living.

It's not so much that I want to die as that I'm tired of living.

Depression lives and grows in the swamp of need.

The one who sees thought as a thought is the witness to mind and no longer subject to suffering.

Where there is light, darkness must cease.

I do not think we were afraid of death

I know what it's like to sleep in fear, to starve myself to be worthy, to be ashamed of my voice, to want to sleep forever. To question why I deserve to live.

In the end, it was the secrets that held me hostage and fuelled my depression, but, once released, emancipation - from fear, shame, guilt and judgement - was finally possible.

I name you today, heart fears. I am small, but you are smaller. You will not stop me. You have a voice, fears, and I must listen, but then I will open my heart. I will love you right to death.

Those who nurse secrets, nurse a chaotic world of amplified silence.

Sometimes you have to cross the boundaries of Death in order to discover the meaning of Life.

I've had a lot of therapists, so I've had the opportunity to approach my fear in many different ways. I've faced it head on and sideways and tried to tiptoe up behind it.

The most amazing thing is that all my sorrows, all of my darkest moments, are becoming my gifts.

The shadow is dark and the woods are cold, but they are not endless. No matter how lost you are now, you are not lost forever. You are findable.Love just keeps on looking. Love is forever tries.

Depressed people do things they wouldn't ordinarily do.

Logic doesn't overcome pain.

Love people who hate you. Pray for people who have wronged you. It won’t just change their life…it’ll change yours.

Prayer is a moment of incarnation - God with us. God involved in the details of my life.

Prayer is my chief work

Praise is pushing back my daily worries and impending tasks to acknowledge my always present, never changing God.

Great faith surfaces in great problems - have faith

[M]editation is the life of of most other duties

Desire, if it is to be trusted, is to be inspired by a holy vocabulary.

God should always be our first thought, not our last resort.

Anytime I'm not reading my Bible or praying, I feel like I'm wasting my time. [Mark's brother-in-law, Matt ________, speaking]

Thankfulness should always be our first response when God answers prayers.

Prayer cannot be a substitution for action.

Prayer is the expression of your heart’s sincere desires poured out to God.