I think it is a luxury and privilege to be sane and well and pessimistic. Because with depression, you have no other option. You don’t want that pessimism, because it is crushing you and keeping you down at the bottom of the well. – Matt Haig
Neuroscience is a baby science, a mere century old, and our scientific understanding of the brain is nowhere near where we’d like it to be. We know more about the moons of Jupiter than what is inside of our skulls. – Matt Haig
I have never felt oppressed by women or that feminism is a problem. I do think boys find it hard to like things seen as feminine. I want my son not to feel self-conscious he likes ballet and my daughter to carry on playing Han Solo; that’s all. – Matt Haig
It is very hard to explain to people who have never known serious depression or anxiety the sheer continuous intensity of it. There is no off switch. – Matt Haig
To make ‘depression’ synonymous with ‘dangerous’ is as bad as saying ‘Muslim’ is synonymous with ‘terrorist.’ – Matt Haig
You don’t need the world to understand you. It’s fine. Some people will never really understand things they haven’t experienced. Some will. Be grateful. – Matt Haig
We often joke about men moaning about being ill, whether it’s man flu or anything else. We want them to be silent and strong about these things. And that’s quite dangerous when it comes to depression, because talking about it helps. People bottle it up until it’s too late. – Matt Haig
Depression is an illness. It is not a ticket to genius. It is not an interesting personality quirk. It is horrible and all-consuming and really hurts. – Matt Haig
Teenagers are philosophers. They are thinking about the big things like existence and identity at a time when their identities are changing so fast. – Matt Haig
If we ever head down the American path of banning certain books or turning the editorial process into one of censorship, we will risk turning teens off books and sending them elsewhere – to their X-Boxes, for instance. To the Internet. And they won’t ever come back to books. – Matt Haig
Depressives have led countries, won wars, flown rockets to the moon, made great music. Don’t let depression stop you employing someone, and never let it cause you to judge them. Depression is not a person. Like any other illness, it is something that happens to a person. It shouldn’t define them. – Matt Haig
There is certainly no one ‘type’ of writer who deliberately draws on Shakespeare. In fact, there’s a strong argument that everyone writing in the English language is influenced by Shakespeare because, to a considerable degree, he shaped that language. – Matt Haig
Look at the sky; remind yourself of the cosmos. Seek vastness at every opportunity in order to see the smallness of yourself. – Matt Haig
You are no less or more of a man or a woman or a human for having depression than you would be for having cancer or cardiovascular disease or a car accident. – Matt Haig
Books are our umbilical cord to life. They connect us deeply, and with more meaning, to the world. They aren’t about escaping from ourselves but expanding ourselves and finding within us the tools we need to survive. – Matt Haig
I’ve always thought feminism had a lot to say about both genders, as it is hard to talk about one without the other. I think men and women alike would benefit from men having a more fluid idea of what being a man is. – Matt Haig
Lots of children have had dark experiences, and if they’re not having direct dark experiences, they are thinking about things and learning that life is fragile. You have to acknowledge that side of life to be able to then offer comfort and hope and goodwill. – Matt Haig
Beauty breeds beauty; truth triggers truth. The cure for writer’s block is therefore to read. – Matt Haig
Writing can be fun. I think the challenge is to convey interesting things in accessible ways, and that’s what I aim to do in books. – Matt Haig
The weirdest thing about a mind is that you can have the most intense things going on in there, but no one else can see them. – Matt Haig
I’d love for mental illness to be seen in the way that other horrible illnesses are. When people get cancer, very few parents will say, ‘Oh I feel so bad for giving you so much unhealthy food over the years.’ – Matt Haig
It can be difficult for people to talk about it, because there still is that stigma around mental illness. But I would encourage people to do that, because they’ll be surprised once they do ‘come out’ how many other people have had similar experiences. – Matt Haig
Being a depressive should not imply danger any more than being a man or even a human should. Mental illness isn’t a them/us issue; we are all on the scale somewhere. So we must be very careful to resist ignorance and combat the stigma that leads to dangerous silence. – Matt Haig
You don’t have to be a creative maverick to have a troubled mind. You just have to be human. There is no ‘us’ and ‘them.’ No one is one hundred per cent healthy, physically or mentally. – Matt Haig
My early novels were written in quite a dark place. I stand by them, but I would never write them again. I think it is subversive to embrace emotional optimism, because it goes against the grain. – Matt Haig
Human brains – in terms of cognition and emotion and consciousness – are essentially the same as they were at the time of Shakespeare or Jesus or Cleopatra or the Stone Age. They are not evolving with the pace of change. – Matt Haig
We need, ultimately, to be able to view mental health with the same clear-headedness we show when talking about physical health. – Matt Haig