“It fascinated me how depression and anxiety overlap with post-traumatic stress disorder. Had we been through some trauma we didn't know about? Was the noise and speed of modern life the trauma for our caveman brains? Was I that soft? Or was life a kind of war most people didn't see?”

“The price for being intelligent enough to be the first species to be fully aware of the cosmos might just be a capacity to feel a whole universe’s worth of darkness.”

“There aren't any fences to the imagination, and so there shouldn't be any for books.”

“We need, ultimately, to be able to view mental health with the same clear-headedness we show when talking about physical health.”

“If you sell the film rights to your book, it doesn't mean there will be a film. I have sold the rights to five books and had zero films made. Take the money and be thankful.”

“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.'”

“Parents can only do what they think is best, with the experience they have. The learning curve for every parent is that there's a limit to how much they can shield children from.”

“If you took away all pain, if everyone lived forever, everything would be bland, flat and boring; there would be no reason for art, music, newspapers, love because we would all be in a mono state of happiness.”

“I think Father Christmas is real because the belief is real. The belief becomes the reality.”

“I think maths is the root of everything. If we understood every area of math, it would lead to improving our sense of science, physics, engineering, space travel... all those great things. Maths is a backbone for it.”

“Be proud to act like a normal human being. Keep daylight hours, get a regular job, and mix in the company of people with a fixed sense of right and wrong.”