“Few family members act on warning signs when they first present themselves in a schizophrenic patient. It is often quite hard to realize, in fact, that something is clinically wrong.”

“Occasionally, family members may reach a point in which they cannot tolerate the odd behavior of the schizophrenic any longer. Often, this leads them to seek help. Other times, it causes said family member to walk away, like the complete raving jerk that she is.”

“How to explain... that the warning signs were so slight? That disaster, when it is quite sure of its own strength, will announce itself by hardly moving its lips?”

“Serious reading is hardly a social activity and every halfway serious reader is perpetually subject to a form of coitus interruptus. Family members or friends who lack the desire, the courage, or the opportunity to burst in on you when there's some indication that you could be sexually entwined will seldom hesitate to interject themselves between you and a page, even though the act of reading is often as intimate and intense as a full-fledged carnal embrace. You must take steps to ensure your privacy.”

“It is easy to dump all the problems and responsibilities of a family on a single member. Yet when we look at David’s family we can see that the whole family needed to deal with a number of issues. Let’s look at a few of them: 1. Each member of the family has hurts. Each member of the family needs help. There is no such thing as a scapegoat. It is easy for a family to designate one of its own.”

“In fact, we are often more interesting and sympathetic as human beings when something has gone wrong than when we are convinced of our own infallibility.”