Cactus, photograph by Janice Taylor, Anti-Gravity Coach, helping you to let go of that which weighs you down.

As we continue to grieve and try so very hard to wrap our minds around Robin Williams’s depression and suicide, I thought it useful to share quotes on melancholy, hopelessness and despair, written by some of our greatest writers that shed light, compassion, and understanding on the topic.

12 Quotes: #Depression…Secret Sorrows

Every man has his secret sorrows, which the world knows not; and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

It’s so hard to talk when you want to kill yourself. That’s above and beyond everything else, and it’s not a mental complaint-it’s a physical thing, like it’s physically hard to open your mouth and make the words come out. They don’t come out smooth and in conjunction with your brain the way normal people’s words do; they come out in chunks as if from a crushed-ice dispenser; you stumble on them as they gather behind your lower lip. So you just keep quiet. ~ Ned Vizzini

There is no point treating a depressed person as though she were just feeling sad, saying, “There now, hang on, you’ll get over it.” Sadness is more or less like a head cold-with patience, it passes. Depression is like cancer. ~ Barbara Kingsolver

Others imply that they know what it is like to be depressed because they have gone through a divorce, lost a job, or broken up with someone. But these experiences carry with them feelings. Depression, instead, is flat, hollow, and unendurable. It is also tiresome. People cannot abide being around you when you are depressed. They might think that they ought to, and they might even try, but you know and they know that you are tedious beyond belief: you are irritable and paranoid and humorless and lifeless and critical and demanding and no reassurance is ever enough. You’re frightened, and you’re frightening, and you’re “not at all like yourself but will be soon,” but you know you won’t. ~ Kay Redfield Jamison

Listen to the people who love you. Believe that they are worth living for even when you don’t believe it. Seek out the memories depression takes away and project them into the future. Be brave; be strong; take your pills. Exercise because it’s good for you even if every step weighs a thousand pounds. Eat when food itself disgusts you. Reason with yourself when you have lost your reason. ~ Andrew Solomon

If you know someone who’s depressed, please resolve never to ask them why. Depression isn’t a straightforward response to a bad situation; depression just is, like the weather. Try to understand the blackness, lethargy, hopelessness, and loneliness they’re going through. Be there for them when they come through the other side. It’s hard to be a friend to someone who’s depressed, but it is one of the kindest, noblest, and best things you will ever do. ~ Stephen Fry

Mental pain is less dramatic than physical pain, but it is more common and also more hard to bear. The frequent attempt to conceal mental pain increases the burden: it is easier to say “My tooth is aching” than to say “My heart is broken. ~ C.S. Lewis

Killing oneself is, anyway, a misnomer. We don’t kill ourselves. We are simply defeated by the long, hard struggle to stay alive. When somebody dies after a long illness, people are apt to say, with a note of approval, “He fought so hard.” And they are inclined to think, about a suicide, that no fight was involved, that somebody simply gave up. This is quite wrong. ~ Sally Brampton

Depression on my left; loneliness on my right. They don’t need to show me their badges. I know these guys very well. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

Depression is the most unpleasant thing I have ever experienced. . . . It is that absence of being able to envisage that you will ever be cheerful again. The absence of hope. That very deadened feeling, which is so very different from feeling sad. Sad hurts but it’s a healthy feeling. It is a necessary thing to feel. Depression is very different. ~ J.K. Rowling

He: What’s the matter with you?
Me: Nothing.
Nothing was slowly clotting my arteries. Nothing slowly numbing my soul. Caught by nothing, saying nothing, nothingness becomes me. When I am nothing they will say surprised in the way that they are forever surprised, “but there was nothing the matter with her. ~ Jeanette Winterson

Depression is melancholy minus its charms. ~ Susan Sontag

How do you make your way through sadness, melancholy, depression?  Share your thoughts below or join Our Lady of Weight Loss’s Kick in the Tush Club/FB.

For the full skinny as well as Anti-Gravity Specials, sign up for Janice Taylor’s (monthly) Kick in the Tush Club newsletter!

Spread the Word-–NOT the icing!

Janice Taylor, Anti-Gravity Coach ~ Come Fly With Me!
Weight Loss Expert, Positarian, Author, Artist