Andrew Solomon Thinking Quotations

You don't think in depression that you've put on a gray veil and are seeing the world through the haze of a bad mood. You think that the veil has been taken away, the veil of happiness, and that now you're seeing truly.

I think a lot of the time people assume that their values are universal. And they don't understand which aspects of their values are actually universal and which aspects are very specific.

There is a false moral imperative that seems to be all-around us that treatment of depression, the medications and so on, are an artifice, and that it's not natural. And I think that's very misguided. It would be natural for people's teeth to fall out, but there is nobody militating against toothpaste, at least not in my circles.

I think an awful lot of the diplomatic problems that exist in the world come from people assuming that their society is the one with a purchase on truth.

I think what the Church should ideally do, and does appear to do in the context of straight relationships, is to support people in crossing from the easier pleasure of momentary carnal satisfaction, into the more difficult pleasure of love and family and relationship.

I grew up in a very rationalist household. My father, in particular, came from that mid-century tradition of thinking science will ultimately explain everything.

When I remember how unhappy I was in adolescence - about the fact that, though I wasn't really using the term to or for myself, I knew that I was gay - I think, "Oh, if someone then could have shown me just an hour in the life that I have now, I would have made it through all of that misery and despair just fine." The pain lay in thinking that I had a desolate future.

I do think that if the Church can see its way to greater tolerance, Church members will have greater exposure to gay people, and the lives of those gay people will be better.

I think it's up to the parents to determine whether what they're doing is consigning their child to difficulty. It's not as though they were crippling their children after they were born.

And I found out about the wonderful world of sign language. I suddenly realized: If we as a society recognize Jewish culture, gay culture and Latino culture, we must recognize that this is a coherent culture, too. I think deafness is a disability for social constructionist reasons.

I think you can't deny that because the cochlear implant exists, the signing world is shrinking.

The strengthening of faith, I think, is the ultimate goal of organized religion altogether.

I'm a huge believer in science. But I don't think it explains everything.

There is also somehow the idea that this gay thing is all just about indulgence in carnal pleasure. When I was twenty and felt that nobody could know I was gay, I was having sex with strangers in public parks. I don't think it was evil exactly, but it wasn't so great either. There was nobody particularly benefiting from it, except, I suppose, to the extent that it gave some pleasure to me and perhaps whomever I was with.