Ariel Gore

When you study postpartum depression, there is a very clear understanding that in communities where you see more support, there is less depression. ”

Before I published anything, I dreamed of publication, but I didn't actually write for it. I imagined that writing for an audience was something for fancier people. I aspired, but mostly I wrote for myself. I wrote because it made me happy. ”

I always do like seeing other people dance in their cars. It's one of the things that makes me happy. ”

A lot of positive psychology is stuck in being the psychology of privilege, and I reject that. ”

Conventional wisdom tells us we'll only be happier after a divorce if the marriage itself was a war zone. ”

I've never been socially outgoing, but I suspect I've gotten more and more ambivalent about making new friends. I'm irritated by how-do-you-do chit-chat, but that's how new relationships usually begin. ”

In my experience, staying in a marriage that my ex and I both agreed had all its best moments behind it was epically depressing. ”

Researchers warn us against walking out on married life without a dang good reason. ”

In all of my looking at happiness, one thing I noticed right away is that the opposite of happiness isn't unhappiness or even depression, it's anxiety. It is something that can constantly block our happiness, or our chance to reach that sort of meditative state in our work or our home lives. ”

The first person who ever told me that happiness was work was this manic-depressive artist I knew when I was in my 20s. I was like, 'What are you talking about? Happiness just happens. That's even the root of that word. How could it be work?' ”