Andrew Solomon

I'm attached to my children with whatever flaws they have, and if some glorious angel broke through the living room ceiling and offered to exchange them for other, better children, I'd cling to my kids and pray away this specter.

One the one hand, the simple fact that there are children and that I do have an effect on them has been one of the most potent antidepressants that I've ever had. And on the other hand, there are moments when I feel imprisoned by the reality that I can no longer make my decisions just for myself, that I have to consider the interests of others.

Britain's withdrawal from the E.U., like Donald Trump's proposal to build a wall between the U.S. and Mexico, is based on a false belief in self-reliance.

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.

I started traveling out of curiosity, but I have come to believe in travel's political importance, that encouraging a nation's citizenry to travel may be as important as encouraging school attendance, environmental conservation, or national thrift. You cannot understand the otherness of places you have not encountered.

I think it would be great if in 50 years you could find out lots more about the conditions your child is going to have - and if we lived in a society that is so tolerant that many things that might now lead to abortion would then be seen as part of human variance.

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.

There is enormous shame around depression of any kind and at any time. And there's enormous social stigma attached to it, which we need to go on fighting. But I think that the sense of depression during pregnancy and early motherhood has been particularly stigmatized, that people especially feel that should be the happiest time of your life.

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.

My father's an opera nut, and my stepmother used to work at the Metropolitan Opera, so I had a lot of opera immersion. I like the grandness and pretention of it.

I like the relative literacy of at least some of England. I mean, I didn't come for the food or the weather!

With the removal of questions about gayness and transgender status in the Census, we really stand to lose a lot of the progress that has been made, and certainly not to make further progress. In order to have a fair system, you need a system you can measure.