“Imagine saying to somebody that you have a life-threatening illness, such as cancer, and being told to pull yourself together or get over it.Imagine being terribly ill and too afraid to tell anyone lest it destroys your career.Imagine being admitted to hospital because you are too ill to function and being too ashamed to tell anyone, because it is a psychiatric hospital.Imagine telling someone that you have recently been discharged and watching them turn away, in embarrassment or disgust or fear.Comparisons are odious. Stigmatising an illness is more odious still.”

“Whatever you think you can do or believe you can do, begin it. Action has magic, grace and power in it.”

“Try never to abandon hope for if you do, hope will surely try to abandon you.”

“When you have spent long years in the dark, there is joy in seeing the light and pleasure, above all, in the ordinary.”

“Letting go is not getting rid of. Letting go is letting be.”

“Only by acceptance of the past will you alter its meaning.”

“Believe nothing. Try everything.”

“If our minds can hold us back, then they can push us forwards too.”

“I believe, completely, that life is about connection; that nothing else truly matters.”

“I often find myself grateful for the comfort of strangers; a man who gave up his seat for me on the bus, a woman who helped me out with a heavy shopping bag. Remembering small acts of kindness puts the world in a finer, sweeter order.”

“The terrible truth about depression, and the part of its nature that terrifies me the most, is that it appears to operate beyond reason; feelings happen to you for no apparent cause. Or rather, there is usually an initial cause, a 'trigger'as they say in therapeutic circles, but in severe depression the feelings of sadness, grief, loneliness and despair continue long after the situation has resolved itself. It is as if depression has a life of its own, which is perhaps why so many sufferers refer to it as a living thing, as some sort of demon or beast.”