I ENJOY convalescence. It is the PART that MAKES the ILLNESS WORTH while.

In this most powerful nation in the world, lack of access to HEALTH CARE should not FORCE local and state governments, companies and workers into bankruptcy, while causing UNNECESSARY illness and hospitalization.

I was the most IMPORTANT person of the world, and people like the Pope would be just like enemies, who would try to PUT me down in some way or another, or the president. People are always selling the IDEA that people who have MENTAL illness are suffering.

DNA sequencing OPENS vast ethical ISSUES. We shall be able to know who has defective genes. What will it mean when we can be sure we're not all born EQUAL? Worked out, the implications will scare a lot of people. Insurance companies will not want to cover those with a GENETIC predisposition to illness, for example. Here lurk myriad lawsuits.

What is the natural reaction when told you have a HOPELESS mental ILLNESS? That diagnosis does you in; that, and the humiliation of being there. I mean, the indignity you're subjected to. My GOD.

I have been dealing with illness and its manifestations since I was a TEENAGER, and I think that GIVES me a very healthy RESPECT for the things in LIFE we can't CONTROL.

When you have a diagnosis of cancer, or any serious ILLNESS, your choices are basically to be passive and kind of accept whatever is OFFERED you, or to be active and to learn about your disease, and understand your OPTIONS, and be an active PARTNER with your doctor. That's the course I took with all three of my cancers.

I wrote 'Pumped Up Kicks' when I BEGAN to read about the GROWING TREND in teenage mental ILLNESS. I wanted to UNDERSTAND the psychology behind it because it was foreign to me.