Quotes About Depression, Suicide, Life Being Shit

[Celerity]

I'll start.

"The safest way of not being very miserable is not to expect to be very happy" - Arthur Schopenhauer

"Try as much as possible to be wholly alive with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell. And when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. You will be dead soon enough." - Ernest Hemingway

I didn't really understand the latter until I had a bout with severe anhedonia for one hellish year. Our man Hemingway knew his shit.

 

[GenesAndEnvironment]

 

[TooConscious]

Conspiracy against the human race book has hell of a lot of good words and paragraphs.

 

[StringPuppet]

 

[Celerity]

Conspiracy against the human race book has hell of a lot of good words and paragraphs.

I gotta finish that one.

Holy motherfucker! This dude. Brutally, painfully honest.

 

[WornOutLife]

"Is man one of God's blunders? Or, is God one of man's blunders?"

Friedrich Nietzsche

 

[UseItOrLoseIt]

Cliche or not, it's still one of my favorite quotes:

"To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing."

--William Shakespeare
***
"We are aberrations—beings born undead, neither one thing nor another, or two things at once … uncanny things that have nothing to do with the rest of creation, horrors that poison the world by sowing our madness everywhere we go, glutting daylight and darkness with incorporeal obscenities."

-- Thomas Ligotti
***

"Besides, I'm not in the mood for all this today. I have no desire to demonstrate, surprise, amuse, or persuade. My goal is absolute rest. To know nothing, to teach nothing, to want nothing, to sense nothing, to sleep, and then to sleep more."

--Charles Baudelaire

 

[Dr Iron Arc]

Life Being Shit, eh? South Park illuminated this issue to me almost ten years ago:

Spoiler: Transcript

Kyle	What's up?
Stan	Kyle, I have to admit something to you. You know how I told you over the phone I like the new Gersploosh album? I lied. I don't like it. I don't like it at all, Kyle.
Kyle	Oh. Really? Um well that's okay.
Stan	No, you don't understand dude. Something's happened. Tween Wave doesn't sound the same to me.
Kyle	Why? What's it sound like?
Stan	It... kind of sounds like shit.
Kyle	What? You mean like you don't like the singing, or the lyrics, or what?
Stan	No. I mean it sounds like somebody is shitting in my ears. Please, just listen really close. [has Kyle listen to a track] You don't hear shit?
Kyle	No.
Stan	That doesn't sound like shit to you?
Kyle	NO. Dude, maybe you should see a doctor.
	A doctor's office, day. Stan took Kyle's advice. A doctor is checking Stan's ears
Stan	And so then I put on exactly the same album that I really like a year ago, and it sounded like shit to me.
Doctor Caroll	Uh huh, and what about food? Are some of the things you thought tasted good tasting like shit to you now, too?
Stan	Yeah. I used to love these Pop Rock things, and I tried them the other day and I thought they tasted like shit.
Doctor Caroll	[reads his medical file] This says you had a birthday recently?
Stan	I just turned 10.
Doctor Caroll	Well, that makes sense. You see Stan, as you get older, your eardrums, taste buds, all that stuff develops and changes.
Stan	So this is normal?
Doctor Caroll	It's very normal. Let's just do a quick ear exam. I'm gonna play some Tween Wave music and you tell me what you hear. [plays some music, with lots of fart sounds]What's that sound like to you?
Stan	Sounds like shit.
Doctor Caroll	Aha. Now I'm going to play you some good ole Bob Dylan. [plays a Dylan track. Dylan gets through three syllables before fart sounds replace him.]
Stan	Uh that sounds like shit too.
Doctor Caroll	Wait, this sounds like shit to you?
Stan	Yeah dude, it's just shit.
Doctor Caroll	Well that's very strange. [turns off the player] Hm, I'm gonna try somethin' else. [takes two pictures up to Stan] Look at these two pictures. One of them is an ad for Kevin James' new movie The Zookeeper, and the other is a turd in a microwave. Which one is the ad for The Zookeeper?
Stan	They both look the same. [true enough, except for the turds]
Doctor Caroll	You don't see any difference in the pictures?
Stan	No.
Doctor Caroll	[holds up the picture in his right hand] That is an ad for The Zookeeper and [holds up the picture in his left hand] that is a turd about to be reheated.
Stan	They both look like turds about to be reheated to me.
Doctor Caroll	Oh dear. I think I know what this is. You see Stan, as you get older, things that you used to like start looking and sounding like shit. And things that seemed shitty as a child don't seem as shitty. With you, somehow, the wires have gotten crossed and everything looks and sounds like shit to you. It's a condition called "being a cynical asshole."
Stan	Oh no.
Doctor Caroll	Yes. And there's no known cure, I'm afraid. Everything just seems shitty, and everyone starts to seem shitty, and everything they say just starts to [sounds shitty now, and Stan can't believe his ears. Soon, shit comes out of the doctor's mouth and Stan is more horrified]

No quote, but this next segment shows how I sort of felt with depression too. The only way I've been able to stay sane is by finding ironic or dumb reasons to like things before they become genuine to me...

 

[WhatDoesTheFoxSay?]

What is evil? What is good? In nature, there is only predator and prey.
—Blane the Insane, Guild Wars 2


—George Orwell, Animal Farm


Epicurus' Trilemma, The Problem of Evil

 

[Celerity]

Life Being Shit, eh? South Park illuminated this issue to me almost ten years ago:

Spoiler: Transcript

Kyle	What's up?
Stan	Kyle, I have to admit something to you. You know how I told you over the phone I like the new Gersploosh album? I lied. I don't like it. I don't like it at all, Kyle.
Kyle	Oh. Really? Um well that's okay.
Stan	No, you don't understand dude. Something's happened. Tween Wave doesn't sound the same to me.
Kyle	Why? What's it sound like?
Stan	It... kind of sounds like shit.
Kyle	What? You mean like you don't like the singing, or the lyrics, or what?
Stan	No. I mean it sounds like somebody is shitting in my ears. Please, just listen really close. [has Kyle listen to a track] You don't hear shit?
Kyle	No.
Stan	That doesn't sound like shit to you?
Kyle	NO. Dude, maybe you should see a doctor.
	A doctor's office, day. Stan took Kyle's advice. A doctor is checking Stan's ears
Stan	And so then I put on exactly the same album that I really like a year ago, and it sounded like shit to me.
Doctor Caroll	Uh huh, and what about food? Are some of the things you thought tasted good tasting like shit to you now, too?
Stan	Yeah. I used to love these Pop Rock things, and I tried them the other day and I thought they tasted like shit.
Doctor Caroll	[reads his medical file] This says you had a birthday recently?
Stan	I just turned 10.
Doctor Caroll	Well, that makes sense. You see Stan, as you get older, your eardrums, taste buds, all that stuff develops and changes.
Stan	So this is normal?
Doctor Caroll	It's very normal. Let's just do a quick ear exam. I'm gonna play some Tween Wave music and you tell me what you hear. [plays some music, with lots of fart sounds]What's that sound like to you?
Stan	Sounds like shit.
Doctor Caroll	Aha. Now I'm going to play you some good ole Bob Dylan. [plays a Dylan track. Dylan gets through three syllables before fart sounds replace him.]
Stan	Uh that sounds like shit too.
Doctor Caroll	Wait, this sounds like shit to you?
Stan	Yeah dude, it's just shit.
Doctor Caroll	Well that's very strange. [turns off the player] Hm, I'm gonna try somethin' else. [takes two pictures up to Stan] Look at these two pictures. One of them is an ad for Kevin James' new movie The Zookeeper, and the other is a turd in a microwave. Which one is the ad for The Zookeeper?
Stan	They both look the same. [true enough, except for the turds]
Doctor Caroll	You don't see any difference in the pictures?
Stan	No.
Doctor Caroll	[holds up the picture in his right hand] That is an ad for The Zookeeper and [holds up the picture in his left hand] that is a turd about to be reheated.
Stan	They both look like turds about to be reheated to me.
Doctor Caroll	Oh dear. I think I know what this is. You see Stan, as you get older, things that you used to like start looking and sounding like shit. And things that seemed shitty as a child don't seem as shitty. With you, somehow, the wires have gotten crossed and everything looks and sounds like shit to you. It's a condition called "being a cynical asshole."
Stan	Oh no.
Doctor Caroll	Yes. And there's no known cure, I'm afraid. Everything just seems shitty, and everyone starts to seem shitty, and everything they say just starts to [sounds shitty now, and Stan can't believe his ears. Soon, shit comes out of the doctor's mouth and Stan is more horrified]

No quote, but this next segment shows how I sort of felt with depression too. The only way I've been able to stay sane is by finding ironic or dumb reasons to like things before they become genuine to me...

I love being a cynical asshole! At least you can act smugly superior.

 

[DunnoWhyButYeah]

*edited*

 

[GenesAndEnvironment]

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing."

Yikerinos

 

[DunnoWhyButYeah]

Yikerinos

Damn :D Didn't notice that!

 

[Dr Iron Arc]

I love being a cynical asshole! At least you can act smugly superior.

True, though I've gotten flack for it just as much and find myself sometimes wishing I really could just genuinely enjoy a thing almost everyone else seems to be into...

 

[Deadlyroses]

"Depression sucks and life is shit"

-Me

 

[Dr Iron Arc]

"No one dies a virgin, life fucks us all."
-Kurt Cobain

 

[UseItOrLoseIt]

I'm gonna abuse this thread so much...

"The so-called 'psychotically depressed' person who tries to kill herself doesn't do so out of quote 'hopelessness' or any abstract conviction that life's assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire's flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It's not desiring the fall; it's terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling 'Don't!' and 'Hang on!', can understand the jump. Not really. You'd have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling."

--David Foster Wallace (CTBed on September 12, 2008)

 

[Celerity]

I'm gonna abuse this thread so much...

"The so-called 'psychotically depressed' person who tries to kill herself doesn't do so out of quote 'hopelessness' or any abstract conviction that life's assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire's flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It's not desiring the fall; it's terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling 'Don't!' and 'Hang on!', can understand the jump. Not really. You'd have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling."

--David Foster Wallace (CTBed on September 12, 2008)

This is exactly it. And RIP.

I wish it hadn't come to this. I wish I could enjoy life, but it seems I can't. At some point, you look at the board and realize that you're fucked. No amount of squinting and pleading will change what has already happened and what inevitably will. You have lost, and there's no point in prolonging the misery.

 

[motel rooms]

Suicides have already betrayed the body.

Still-born, they don't always die,
but dazzled, they can't forget a drug so sweet
that even children would look on and smile.

To thrust all that life under your tongue!—
that, all by itself, becomes a passion.
Death's a sad bone; bruised, you'd say,

and yet she waits for me, year after year,
to so delicately undo an old wound,
to empty my breath from its bad prison.

-- Anne Sexton

 

[Sensei]

"Life is like stepping onto a boat which is about to sail out to sea and sink."
--Shunryu Suzuki

 

[FuneralCry]

 

[UseItOrLoseIt]

"Action is transitory - a step, a blow,
The motion of a muscle - this way or that -
'Tis done, and in the after-vacancy
We wonder at ourselves like men betrayed;
Suffering is permanent, obscure and dark,
And shares the nature of infinity."

--William Wordsworth

 

[motel rooms]

Dying is an art, like everything else. I do it exceptionally well. I do it so it feels like hell.

-- S. Plath

 

[motel rooms]

Everyone stands alone at the heart of the world
pierced by a ray of sunlight:
and soon it is evening

-- Salvatore Quasimodo

 

[it's_all_a_game]

"Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist." - George Carlin

 

[puppet_nihilist]

"I had given him a life not worth living, but I had also given him an iron will to live. This was a common combination on the planet Earth"

~ Kurt Vonnegut

 

[signifying nothing]

"Every human being must have a point at which he stands against the culture, where he says, this is me and the damned world can go to hell."

- Rollo May

 

[domedune]

 

[motel rooms]

Death was defiance. Death was an attempt to communicate; people feeling the impossibility of reaching the center which, mystically, evaded them; closeness drew apart; rapture faded, one was alone. There was an embrace in death.

-- V. Woolf

 

[LastLoveLetter]