Quotes from Matt Haig

Even more staggeringly, depression is a disease so bad that people are killing themselves because of it in a way they do not kill themselves with any other illness. Yet people still don't really think depression really is that bad. If they did, they wouldn't say the things they say.

The key to happiness - or that even more desired thing, calmness - lies not in always thinking happy thoughts. No. That is impossible. No mind on earth with any kind of intelligence could spend a lifetime enjoying only happy thoughts. They key is in accepting your thoughts, all of them, even the bad ones. Accept thoughts, but don't become them. Understand, for instance, that having a sad thought, even having a continual succession of sad thoughts, is not the same as being a sad person.

Nothing is stronger than a small hope that doesn't give up. Nothing is stronger than a small hope that doesn't give up. Nothing is stronger than a small hope that doesn't give up. Nothing is stronger than a small hope that doesn't give up.

The rook is my favourite piece,' she said. 'It's the one that you think you don't have to watch out for. It is straightforward. You keep your eye on the queen, and the knights, and the bishop, because they are the sneaky ones. But it's the rook that often gets you. The straightforward is never quite what it seems.

In your mind, change the name of every day to Saturday. And change the name of work to play.

There will be times in your life when you will feel lost and confused. The way back to yourself is through reading. There is not a problem in existence that has not been eased, somewhere and at some time, by a book. I want you to remember that. And the more you read, the more you will know how to find your way through those difficult times.

Beware of the gap. The gap between where you are and where you want to be. Simply thinking of the gap widens it. And you end up falling through.

I feel we need to stop seeing mental and physical health as either/or and more as a both/and situation. There is no difference. We are mental. We are physical. We are not split up into unrelated sections. We are not an existential department store. We are everything at once.

There will be other days. And other feelings.

You can choose choices but not outcomes.

To see the act of learning as something not for its own sake but because of what it will get you reduces the wonder of humanity. We are thinking, feeling, art-making, knowledge-hungry, marvellous animals, who understand ourselves and our world through the act of learning. It is an end in itself. It has far more to offer than the things it lets us write on application forms. It is a way to love living right now.

We only know what we perceive. Everything we experience is ultimately just our perception of it. "It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see.

Humans, I was discovering, believed they were in control of their own lives, and so they were in awe of questions and tests, as these made them feel like they had a certain mastery over other people, who had failed in their choices, and who had not worked hard enough on the right answers.

You can't change the past. You can't change other people. You can change you though. You narrate this story. So start to write a new chapter.

I hate depression. I am scared of it. Terrified, in fact. But at the same time, it has made me who I am. And if – for me – it is the price of feeling life, it's a price always worth paying. I am satisfied just to be.

So, as was often the case, a big fear was beaten by a bigger fear. The best way to beat a monster is to find a scarier one.

I drink some water and eat some cereal and then I take Abraham for a walk. He had spent the night eating the arm of the sofa but I don't want to judge him. He has enough issues already.

Don't compare your actual self to a hypothetical self. Don't drown in a sea of 'what ifs'. Don't clutter your mind by imagining other versions of you, in parallel universes where you made different decisions.

When anger trawls the internet, Looking for a hook; It's time to disconnect, And go and read a book.

Equidistant. Not aligned to one bank or the other...caught in the middle. Struggling, flailing, just trying to survive while not knowing which way to go. Which path to commit to without regret.

what we consider to be the most successful route for us to take, actually isn't. Because too often our view of success is about some external bullshit idea of achievement – an Olympic medal, the ideal husband, a good salary. And we have all these metrics that we try and reach. When really success isn't something you measure, and life isn't a race you can win. It's all . . . bollocks, actually . . .

Being a parent is standing on a shore and watching her child in a vulnerable craft, heading out over deeper and deeper water, hoping but not knowing there will be land somewhere ahead.

Vampire? Such a provocative word, wrapped in too many clichés and girly novels.

Maybe the point of life is to give up certainty and to embrace life's beautiful uncertainty.