When, in the autumn of 1947, I was fired from the first and only job I have ever held, I wanted one thing out of life: to become a writer.

- William Styron

The writer's duty is to keep on writing.

- William Styron

Mysteriously and in ways that are totally remote from natural experience, the gray drizzle of horror induced by depression takes on the quality of ph…

- William Styron

Writers ever since writing began have had problems, and the main problem narrows down to just one word - life.

- William Styron

The mornings themselves were becoming bad now as I wandered about lethargic, following my synthetic sleep, but afternoons were still the worst, beg…

- William Styron

In the absence of hope we must still struggle to survive, and so we do-by the skin of our teeth.

- William Styron

The pain is unrelenting; one does not abandon, even briefly, one's bed of nails, but is attached to it wherever one goes.

- William Styron

The pain of depression is quite unimaginable to those who have not suffered it, and it kills in many instances because its anguish can no longer be b…

- William Styron

[However], the sufferer from depression has no option, and therefore finds himself, like a walking casualty of war, thrust into the most intolerable …

- William Styron