“The melancholy can be black as suicide, gray as depression, white as emptiness and blue as mood. It may appear as fear, boredom, longing, fatigue, emptiness, anxiety, or a forced search for pleasure. However, there is always a lack or loss that lies beneath.”

“Melancholy is an intimate aspect of human nature, while depression, like any other illness, creates fear and perplexity. Melancholy can displayed, depression is usually hidden. When transformed into a depression, melancholy becomes a defeat.”

“Something is lost, but a person does not know what it is; this feeling is indescribable in words, and therefore, it can be experienced only as the emptiness.”

“One man's anxiety can fill a medium size dorm. Everything is a battlefield when your dreams are ants.”

“Men marry women who see through their bullshit, and women marry men they can't seduce, at least according to Lou. It's the only way you can live with each other over long periods of time and get things done, raising kids and buying houses and all the other nonsense of matrimony and human striving. To Judith, this was a depressing thought. She wanted to marry a man who was so crazy for her he couldn't see straight.”

“Fear knocked and faith answered.”

“Talking of the local Sheriff, Jake Valentine, tall and skinny and his wife Myra, "She was a short woman, maybe five feet tall in her socks, the top of her head not quite reaching Jake's chest. What she lacked in height she made up for in girth. Jeffrey guessed she was at least a hundred pounds overweight. Standing side by side, the Valentines looked like the living embodiment of the number ten.”