“Supposedly there's an actual, researched link between extreme creativity and mental illness, and I believe it because I've seen it with my own eyes.”

“Psychiatrist David Shainberg argued that mental illness, which appears chaotic, is actually the reverse. Mental illness occurs when images of the self become rigid and closed, restricting an open creative response to the world.”

“Tired of my own company, I suppose, now I've seen so much better.”

“There's no demonstrable link between hoarding and early material deprivation. But there is a link between hoarding and EMOTIONAL deprivation. Many hoarders report being physically or sexually abused as children. My mother was deprived of love, affection, often even the acknowledgment of her existence, to say nothing of the beatings she endured. Her cold and chaotic childhood home was the perfect breeding ground for the mental illness that would end up affecting us all.”

“There's an elegiac quality in watching [American wilderness] go, because it's our own myth, the American frontier, that's deteriorating before our eyes. I feel a deep sorrow that my kids will never get to see what I've seen, and their kids will see nothing; there's a deep sadness whenever I look at nature now.”

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