Depression begins with disappointment. When disappointment festers in our soul, it leads to discouragement.

There’s certainly a side of me that isn’t completely… sane. Or completely ‚even‘ all the time. We all have our dark sides.

Those who weep for the happy periods which they encounter in history acknowledge what they want; not the alleviation but the silencing of misery.

It’s very important that we re-learn the art of resting and relaxing. Not only does it help prevent the onset of many illnesses that develop through chronic tension and worrying; it allows us to clear our minds, focus, and find creative solutions to problems.

I was called really horrible, profane names very loudly in front of huge crowds of people, and my schoolwork suffered at one point.

Hatred is blind, as well as love.

When a man has once loved a woman he will do anything for her except continue to love her.

No one was more shocked or angry than I was when we didn’t find the weapons. I had a sickening feeling every time I thought about it. I still do.

William Maxwell’s my favorite North American writer, I think. And an Irish writer who used to write for ‚The New Yorker‘ called Maeve Brennan, and Mary Lavin, another Irish writer. There were a lot of writers that I found in ‚The New Yorker‘ in the Fifties who wrote about the same type of material I did – about emotions and places.

It’s possible to love a human being if you don’t know them too well.

What I want for my fans and for the world, for anyone who feels pain, is to lean into that pain and embrace it as much as they can and begin the healing process.

I am alone; I am always alone no matter what.

Wisdom ceases to be wisdom when it becomes too proud to weep, too grave to laugh, and too selfish to seek other than itself.

I have a little bit of PTSD when I hear a big bang or a loud noise or keys – I jump out of my skin.

The good times of today, are the sad thoughts of tomorrow.

The dieting wars have got to stop.

You can draw inspiration from anything. If you’re a good storyteller, you can take a dirty look somebody gives you, or if a guy you used to have flirtations with starts dating a new girl, or somebody you’re casually talking to says something that makes you so mad – you can create an entire scenario around that.

If merely ‚feeling good‘ could decide, drunkenness would be the supremely valid human experience.

Most damage that others do us is out of fear, humiliation and pain. Those feelings occur in all of us, not just in those of us who profess a certain religious or racial devotion.

Farewell, fair cruelty.

We are dying from overthinking. We are slowly killing ourselves by thinking about everything. Think. Think. Think. You can never trust the human mind anyway. It’s a death trap.

No matter how dull, or how mean, or how wise a man is, he feels that happiness is his indisputable right.

When people need love and understanding and support the most is when they deserve it the least.

Jump out the window if you are the object of passion. Flee it if you feel it. Passion goes, boredom remains.

People like music when they’re in love, but they don’t need it as much. You need music when you’re missing someone or you’re pining for someone or you’re forgetting someone or you’re trying to process what just happened.

The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quiet, alone with the heavens, nature and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be.

What air is to the body, to feel understood is to the heart.

Love can consign us to hell or to paradise, but it always takes us somewhere.

I like to let things breathe.

Guilt is perhaps the most painful companion of death.

I’m pretty sure I don’t have any songs that are about how much I love someone. They’re all either about, like, ‚I hate you,‘ or ‚You make me hate me.‘

Achievement brings its own anticlimax.

Isolation is the sum total of wretchedness to a man.

If a man be gloomy let him keep to himself. No one has the right to go croaking about society, or what is worse, looking as if he stifled grief.

Music should strike fire from the heart of man, and bring tears from the eyes of woman.

An asylum for the sane would be empty in America.

I think that you can love people without it being the great love.

Boys do cry, but I don’t think I shed a tear for a good chunk of my teenage years.

The spirit of envy can destroy; it can never build.

I am particularly drawn to the form of meditation called Japa. I know it works.

When my first semester grades came out, my mom and dad told me I wouldn’t be playing football.

There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.

When you think about it, three of our biggest financial decisions in life are made at times of peak emotional excitement: deciding to get married, buying a home, and having kids.

There are no rules when it comes to love.

I’ve often said there’s nothing better for the inside of a man than the outside of a horse.

I was nauseous and tingly all over. I was either in love or I had smallpox.

There is but an inch of difference between a cushioned chamber and a padded cell.

Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

I can say I’d honestly rather be happy than have 30 to 40 songs that I’ve written about these thrilling, exciting, horrible, unhappy times.

Our judgments when we are pleased and friendly are not the same as when we are pained and hostile.

When dealing with the insane, the best method is to pretend to be sane.

All you need is love.

You can be obsessed with the bad things people say and the good things; either way, you’re obsessed with yourself, and I’m not – you can become unhinged so easily.

Guilt is cancer. Guilt will confine you, torture you, destroy you as an artist. It’s a black wall. It’s a thief.

We conceal it from ourselves in vain – we must always love something. In those matters seemingly removed from love, the feeling is secretly to be found, and man cannot possibly live for a moment without it.

When you lose a person you love so much, surviving the loss is difficult.

No great genius has ever existed without some touch of madness.

The usual fortune of complaint is to excite contempt more than pity.

I cry very easily. It can be a movie, a phone conversation, a sunset – tears are words waiting to be written.

Sensual love deceives one as to the nature of heavenly love; it could not do so alone, but since it unconsciously has the element of heavenly love within it, it can do so.

On the other hand, what I like my music to do to me is awaken the ghosts inside of me. Not the demons, you understand, but the ghosts.