I can’t survive,′ he once told me of his refusal to come indoors,’if I can’t hear the orchestra the way I like to hear it.

I don’t want the concert to ever end.

Without a mission and a sense of whom you write for, you aren’t worth reading.

Nathaniel is not a mentally ill musician, as I have been referring to him, but a musician with mental illness. It’s a subtle but significant difference, recognizing the person before the illness.

It’s more interesting to be out in the world. than to see it reflected in the mirror.

Negativity is never an option.

Mental illness doesn’t choose the most talented or the smartest or the richest or the poorest. It shows no mercy and often arrives like an unexpected storm, dropping an endless downpour on young dreams.

Nurses quietly go about their work in a noble profession, uncelebrated soldiers toiling through the days and nights in service to the sick, the injured and the dying.

Mental illness doesn't choose the most talented or the smartest or the richest or the poorest. It shows no mercy and often arrives like an unexpected storm, dropping an endless downpour on young dreams.

Love is mental illness going in and mental illness coming out. In between, you do a lot of laundry.