Andrew Solomon
Andrew Solomon
Andrew Solomonis a writer on politics, culture and psychology, who lives in New York and London. He has written for The New York Times, The New Yorker, Artforum, Travel and Leisure, and other publications on a range of subjects, including depression, Soviet artists, the cultural rebirth of Afghanistan, Libyan politics, and Deaf politics. His book The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression won the 2001 National Book Award, was a finalist for the 2002 Pulitzer Prize, and was included in...
ProfessionWriter
suicide loneliness people
Suicide is a crime of loneliness, and adulated people can be frighteningly alone. Intelligence does not help in these circumstances; brilliance is almost always profoundly isolating.
voice ironic secret
It is easy to keep secrets by being honest in an ironic tone of voice.
oppression
Oppression breeds the power to oppose it.
language intimacy absence
The absence of words is the absence of intimacy. There are experiences that are starved for language.
reality utah church
The Church responds to antiquated social realities, and those realities remain much more current in Utah precisely because of the Church.
depression real drawing
Antonin Artaud wrote on one of his drawings, "Never real and always true," and that is how depression feels. You know that it is not real, that you are someone else, and yet you know that it is absolutely true.
exercise work-out pounds
Exercise because it's good for you even if every step weighs a thousand pounds.
people want changed
People … don't want to be cured or changed or eliminated. They want to be whoever it is that they've come to be.
self-esteem believe dark
People who believe that they are going to be excommunicated and shamed, or whatever other dark things may happen to them, are much less likely to enter open, loving relationships. And they are also much less likely to have the self-esteem that is required to be monogamous and loving. And in consequence, they are much less likely to create families.
acceptance identity way
Fixing is the illness model; acceptance is the identity model; which way any family goes reflects their assumptions and resources.
soul being-depressed mental-health
I hated being depressed, but it was also in depression that I learned my own acreage, the full extent of my soul.
pride giving feel-good
Then I repeated these words to my spirits: 'Leave me be; give me peace; and let me do the work of my life. I will never forget you.' Something about that incantation was particularly appealing to me. 'I will never forget you'-- as though one had to address the pride of the spirits, as though one wanted them to feel good about being exorcised.
darkness prejudice encounters
I encounter a lot of prejudice and a lot of darkness. I have to negotiate constantly through situations that are uncomfortable or difficult or strange.
jobs children ideas
I felt like all of the work was training for just one central idea: Accept your child for who he is. I'm not saying that I've done a brilliant job with that. But I've done my best.