No bill of sexual rights can hold its own against the lawless, untamable landscape of the erotic imagination.

- Daphne Merkin

I think the experience of depression that I most think remains true throughout the years is it's very isolating. That to me is its strongest quality.…

- Daphne Merkin

Then again, as those who suffer from it know, intractable depression creates a planet all its own, largely impermeable to influence from others excep…

- Daphne Merkin

Everything felt fragile and freshly come upon, but for now, at least, my depression had stepped back, giving me room to move forward. I had forgotten…

- Daphne Merkin

It was through reading that I discovered the crucial, even sacrosanct place the rituals of drinking held in the American imagination - the ingenious …

- Daphne Merkin

Everyone lies about sex, more or less, to themselves if not to others, to others if not to themselves, exaggerating its importance or minimizing its …

- Daphne Merkin

I see depression as an exponentially developed version of a human condition. Meaning I always think in the end it's humanizing. People who never suff…

- Daphne Merkin

There's something stubborn about families, unhappy ones in particular: they outlive themselves, and then they live on.

- Daphne Merkin

Much as I try to disguise myself, there is never a time when I'm not aware of being overweight.

- Daphne Merkin