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" If you can't give children optimism, then what are you doing? "
Matt Haig
Doing
You
Optimism
Related Quotes:
" However much in the foreground depression feels, you are separate to it. This is going to sound cheesy, but I'd say you are the sky. A cloud comes and dominates the sky. But the sky is still the sky. Depression tells you everything is going to get worse, but that's a symptom. Don't give depression power - constantly discredit it. "
Matt Haig
You
Cloud
Say
" Books should be right up there with exercise and diet as something that don't just entertain us but heal us. They tell us we are not alone and fix the pieces of us that can be shattered by reality. They are teachers, and they are friends, and we should never contemplate a world - or a life - without them. "
Matt Haig
Friends
Alone
World
" I'd love for mental illness to be seen in the way that other horrible illnesses are. When people get cancer, very few parents will say, 'Oh I feel so bad for giving you so much unhealthy food over the years.' "
Matt Haig
You
Food
Giving
" People, certainly in the U.K., look down on screenwriting as an art form, but I love the discipline of it. Next to the bagginess of novel writing, it almost feels like a martial art. "
Matt Haig
Love
Discipline
Art
" Like most art forms, writing is part instinct and part craft. The craft part is the part that can be taught, and that can make a crucial difference to lots of writers. "
Matt Haig
Art
Craft
Difference
" Books are our umbilical cord to life. They connect us deeply, and with more meaning, to the world. They aren't about escaping from ourselves but expanding ourselves and finding within us the tools we need to survive. "
Matt Haig
Tools
Meaning
Life
" Human brains - in terms of cognition and emotion and consciousness - are essentially the same as they were at the time of Shakespeare or Jesus or Cleopatra or the Stone Age. They are not evolving with the pace of change. "
Matt Haig
Emotion
Change
Time
" My early novels were written in quite a dark place. I stand by them, but I would never write them again. I think it is subversive to embrace emotional optimism, because it goes against the grain. "
Matt Haig
Dark
Think
Stand
" Depression, for me, wasn't a dulling but a sharpening, an intensifying, as though I had been living my life in a shell, and now the shell wasn't there. It was total exposure. "
Matt Haig
Me
My Life
Living
" I think Father Christmas is real because the belief is real. The belief becomes the reality. "
Matt Haig
Father
Real
Reality
" I think it is a luxury and privilege to be sane and well and pessimistic. Because with depression, you have no other option. You don't want that pessimism, because it is crushing you and keeping you down at the bottom of the well. "
Matt Haig
Luxury
Think
Depression
" Depression is an illness. It is not a ticket to genius. It is not an interesting personality quirk. It is horrible and all-consuming and really hurts. "
Matt Haig
Depression
Personality
Interesting
" If you are an atheist as I am, Shakespeare can be your ideal. Everything is within Shakespeare, especially in his 10 greatest plays. They have life, meaning, understanding, the whole lot. "
Matt Haig
Life
Meaning
Understanding
" There is certainly no one 'type' of writer who deliberately draws on Shakespeare. In fact, there's a strong argument that everyone writing in the English language is influenced by Shakespeare because, to a considerable degree, he shaped that language. "
Matt Haig
Strong
Writing
Language
" If you took away all pain, if everyone lived forever, everything would be bland, flat and boring; there would be no reason for art, music, newspapers, love because we would all be in a mono state of happiness. "
Matt Haig
Happiness
You
Pain
" Thinking about death makes you analyse what life is. Anxiety makes you curious, and curiosity leads to understanding. I wouldn't be a writer without depression. "
Matt Haig
You
Life
Curiosity
" It would be lovely to live in a culture where calmness was the aim. "
Matt Haig
Aim
Where
Culture
" The implication that depressed people are fundamentally irresponsible is a deeply damaging and counterproductive one. Winston Churchill was a depressive. He didn't just fly planes; he was in charge of the Royal Air Force. "
Matt Haig
Fly
Royal
People
" I think maths is the root of everything. If we understood every area of math, it would lead to improving our sense of science, physics, engineering, space travel... all those great things. Maths is a backbone for it. "
Matt Haig
Great
Think
Space
" Robots are great. I am saying that now so that when a future civilization of robots takes us captive, they will search through the 'Guardian' web archive and realise I said, 'Robots are great,' and then they'll choose to save me. "
Matt Haig
Saying
Me
I Am
" How clear can I put this? I am not denying female oppression; I am trying to stop it by calling for a more fluid masculinity. "
Matt Haig
Oppression
Trying
Stop
" In an age of never-ending health fads, it's comforting to learn that one of the healthiest activities you can do has existed for millennia. It's called reading. Yes, books are not just entertaining or educational: they can also improve your mental health. "
Matt Haig
Health
Reading
You
" It took me at least all my 20s and some of my 30s to get the confidence to realise I could just write about what I wanted to write about without having to pass a test or look super clever. "
Matt Haig
Look
Test
Clever
" Keep reiterating, again and again, that depression is not something you 'admit to.' It is not something you have to blush about; it is a human experience. It is not you. It is simply something that happens to you. "
Matt Haig
Admit
You
Keep
" If we ever head down the American path of banning certain books or turning the editorial process into one of censorship, we will risk turning teens off books and sending them elsewhere - to their X-Boxes, for instance. To the Internet. And they won't ever come back to books. "
Matt Haig
Internet
Path
Process
" At school, I wasn't as interested in mathematics. I did OK, but at the earliest point I could stop doing math, I stopped. "
Matt Haig
Mathematics
Stop
School
" I'm a firm believer in the connection between the body and the mind: feed one, feed both. I like to run, but only short distances, and fast. I'm no good at long distance. More than six miles, and the knees start to go. "
Matt Haig
Body
Run
Short
" Writing can be fun. I think the challenge is to convey interesting things in accessible ways, and that's what I aim to do in books. "
Matt Haig
Challenge
Fun
Writing
" I have never felt oppressed by women or that feminism is a problem. I do think boys find it hard to like things seen as feminine. I want my son not to feel self-conscious he likes ballet and my daughter to carry on playing Han Solo; that's all. "
Matt Haig
Daughter
Women
Think
" If you sell the film rights to your book, it doesn't mean there will be a film. I have sold the rights to five books and had zero films made. Take the money and be thankful. "
Matt Haig
Thankful
Be Thankful
You