Andrew Solomon

Just as Chairman Mao and Joseph Stalin started by going after the intellectuals, against those whose words who might form an opposition to them, so Trump has gone across us. Free speech is first among equals when we look at what is being violated by this new regime.

The only way I seem to be able to keep going while I'm writing is to munch my way through boxes of chocolates.

Someday, being gay will be a simple fact, free of party hats and blame. But not yet.

I am not a great believer in the idea that journalistic neutrality means you have to abandon the people you talk to.

Sleep is my great indulgence, and I get eight hours every night. Being chronically overtired raises stress levels in a bad way and is responsible for a lot of depressive breaks.

Depression is so exhausting - it takes up so much of your time and energy - and silence about it, it really does make the depression worse.

Shutting out the depression strengthens it. While you hide from it, it grows.

It's important to say that depression has biological underpinnings, and that while medications do not seem to create irreversible changes in the brain, repeated depressive episodes do.

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.

The anxiety phase of my first depression lasted six months. It was incredibly paralyzing.

When I'm not depressed, I draw strength and beauty from depression; when I am depressed, I find no such things.

Dealing with depression effectively is a mark not of weakness, but of strength.