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
people needs belief
Some people are trapped by the belief that love comes in finite quantities, and that our kind of love exhausts the supply upon which they need to draw. I do not accept competitive models of love, only additive ones.
motivation humility writing
While people argue with one another about the specifics of Freud's work and blame him for the prejudices of his time, they overlook the fundamental truth of his writing, his grand humility: that we frequently do not know our own motivations in life and are prisoners to what we cannot understand. We can recognize only a small fragment of our own, and an even smaller fragment of anyone else's, impetus.
loss despair anticipation
Depression is the flaw in love. There's no such thing as love without the anticipation of loss. And that specter of despair can be the engine of intimacy.
right-time feels ifs
We live in the right time, even if it doesn't always feel like it.
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.