I felt like I had a really bad case of writer’s block… Music is so therapeutic for me that if I can’t get it out, I start feeling bad about myself – a lot of self-loathing.

The only antidote to mental suffering is physical pain.

Men who are unhappy, like men who sleep badly, are always proud of the fact.

It makes no sense to worry about things you have no control over because there’s nothing you can do about them, and why worry about things you do control? The activity of worrying keeps you immobilized.

I’m kind of claustrophobic… It’s not even like enclosed spaces. It’s like I hate being stuck in one band, you know? Just being stuck is the biggest drag, for fear that, you know, just that you can’t get out.

I have a slight bit of OCD, I think. I’m not walking around flipping light switches. But when I say I’m going to do something, I have to do it.

I am in my own head most of the time.

The components of anxiety, stress, fear, and anger do not exist independently of you in the world. They simply do not exist in the physical world, even though we talk about them as if they do.

The making of music is profoundly affected by the market.

I think that’s why I put my energy into making music. That’s how I get my thoughts out, instead of being crazy all the time.

Depression runs in my family on both sides, and I have to be wary.

Physical comforts cannot subdue mental suffering, and if we look closely, we can see that those who have many possessions are not necessarily happy. In fact, being wealthy often brings even more anxiety.

I’m not a big fan of psychoanalysis: I think if you have mental problems what you need are good pills. But I do think that if you have thinks that bother you, things that are unresolved, the more that you talk about them, write about them, the less serious they become.

By imposing too great a responsibility, or rather, all responsibility, on yourself, you crush yourself.

Music is so therapeutic for me that if I can’t get it out, I start feeling bad about myself – a lot of self-loathing.

It seems like we wake up and it’s a race until you get to bed. It gets to you after a while and you think, ‚What the hell am I doing?‘

I found music to be the therapy of choice. I guess it is for a lot of people.

Paranoia is just another word for ignorance.

One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one’s work is terribly important.

When I get down, I don’t waller around for long.

I’m perpetually lonely.

We have an obligation to help people that cannot help themselves. The mentally retarded, the physically retarded, et cetera.

I know that one of the great arts that the writer develops is the art of saying, ‚No. No, I’m finished. Bye.‘ And leaving it alone. I will not write it into the ground. I will not write the life out of it. I won’t do that.

The walls we build around us to keep sadness out also keeps out the joy.

Jealousy… is a mental cancer.

I put my heart and my soul into my work, and have lost my mind in the process.

Making music is like shopping for me. Every song is like a new pair of shoes.

I have owed you this letter for a very long time-but my fingers have avoided the pencil as though it were an old and poisoned tool.

I worked with someone who told me they’d never like me. But for some reason, I just felt like I needed her approval. So I started changing myself to please her. It made me stop being social and friendly. I was so unhappy.

Keeping an active mind has been vital to my survival, as has been maintaining a sense of humor.

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.

If I panic, everyone else panics.

When you begin to worry, go find something to do. Get busy being a blessing to someone; do something fruitful. Talking about your problem or sitting alone, thinking about it, does no good; it serves only to make you miserable. Above all else, remember that worrying is totally useless. Worrying will not solve your problem.

Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.

When the negative thoughts come – and they will; they come to all of us – it’s not enough to just not dwell on it… You’ve got to replace it with a positive thought.

When you get angry, your options narrow.

The basic thing nobody asks is why do people take drugs of any sort? Why do we have these accessories to normal living to live? I mean, is there something wrong with society that’s making us so pressurized, that we cannot live without guarding ourselves against it?

I’m a super-duper over-analyzer. You mix that with self-doubt and pressure, and that’s never healthy.

As a lifestyle you always being the focal point is innately unhealthy.

I learned never to empty the well of my writing, but always to stop when there was still something there in the deep part of the well, and let it refill at night from the springs that fed it.

The reason why worry kills more people than work is that more people worry than work.

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.

If it weren’t for painting, I wouldn’t live; I couldn’t bear the extra strain of things.

What is needed, rather than running away or controlling or suppressing or any other resistance, is understanding fear; that means, watch it, learn about it, come directly into contact with it. We are to learn about fear, not how to escape from it.

I’ve had sleep paralysis.

If someone decides they’re not going to be happy, it’s not your problem. You don’t have to spend your time and energy trying to cheer up someone who has already decided to stay in a bad mood. Believe it or not, you can actually hurt people by playing into their self-pity.

My peers, lately, have found companionship through means of intoxication – it makes them sociable. I, however, cannot force myself to use drugs to cheat on my loneliness – it is all that I have – and when the drugs and alcohol dissipate, will be all that my peers have as well.

There appears to be something to do with vehicles and movement that stimulates my writing.

Give yourself more opportunities for privacy, when you are not bombarded with duties and obligations. Privacy is not a rejection of those you love; it is your deserved respite for recharging your batteries.

My head’s never really quiet. The only time I can get it to turn off is if I watch ‚CSI‘ or ‚Law & Order,‘ where I have to follow the crime. If I can’t turn my head off during that, I know I’ve really got a problem.

When I was making the early stuff, I never expected it to be so big. I was in my own kind of bubble. I never wanted to tour; I just wanted to create music and make a diary I could put out into the world. And sometimes, I became the characters.

I know from personal experience how damaging it can be to live with bitterness and unforgiveness. I like to say it’s like taking poison and hoping your enemy will die. And it really is that harmful to us to live this way.

I admire people who destroy themselves.

Meditation is not following any system; it is not constant repetition and imitation. Meditation is not concentration.

The mind of America is seized by a fatal dry rot – and it’s only a question of time before all that the mind controls will run amuck in a frenzy of stupid, impotent fear.

In the grip of a neurological disorder, I am fast losing control of words even as my relationship with the world has been reduced to them.

Pound’s crazy. All poets are. They have to be. You don’t put a poet like Pound in the loony bin.

No one’s policing their own minds more than an author. You spend a lot of time in your own head analysing what you think about things, and a philosophy comes.

I don’t need therapy. I’m not going to see a therapist; comedy acts as my therapy. I put my problems out there. I talk about them. I talk about everything before anybody has a chance.

I think I hate cynicism more than anything else. It’s the curse of our age, and I want to avoid it at all costs.

I have lost my mental faculties but am perfectly well.