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How can a doctor judge a woman's sanity by merely bidding her good morning and refusing to hear her pleas for release? Even the sick ones know it is useless to say anything, for the answer will be that it is their imagination.

I once missed an appointment because I left my house, I locked the door. And then I thought, like anybody else, you know, 'I don't think I locked the door.' I just kept going back to the door. And I couldn't stop myself from checking and checking.

One day, I made a remark that I might work with people with mental illness, and somebody in the press heard it, and it was in the paper. And the more I thought about it and found out about it, the more I thought it was just a terrible situation with no attention. And I've been working on it ever since.

I don't want to be idealized by a patient because of what I've written.

There is a mystique about psychiatry that people think that you have some kind of a magical lens, you know, Superman's X-ray vision into the soul. One of the reasons I left psychiatry is that I didn't believe that.

When do you know you're insane? And when do you known you're sane? I think I treat a fine line between the two. It's a battle to function, but somehow I manage.

If doctors just spent more time with their patients so they felt more reassured, that might help.

Insane people are always sure that they are fine. It is only the sane people who are willing to admit that they are crazy.

I got this idea about being afraid to let go of something and being afraid of sinking into a state of almost anesthesia, where you have to trust other people. Just the paranoia of it all. And it seemed to suit the frenetic track. So I just wrote it out and, you know, said it.