Johanes

“Sometimes owls came near to warn of death. Sometimes they just asked people to be careful. Sometimes they were just owls.”
― Louise Erdrich, The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse

“When a baby falls asleep in your arms you are absolved. The purest creature alive has chosen you. There’s nothing else.”
― Louise Erdrich, The Sentence

“You can’t get over things you do to other people as easily as you get over things they do to you.”
― Louise Erdrich, The Sentence

“The cumulative results of the brain’s chemical effects are not well understood. In the 1989 edition of the standard Comprehensive Textbook of Psychiatry, for example, one finds this helpful formula: a depression score is equivalent to the level of 3-methoxy-4-hydroxyphenylglycol (a compound found in the urine of all people and not apparently affected by depression); minus the level of 3-methoxy-4-hydroxymandelic acid; plus the level of norepinephrine; minus the level of normetanephrine plus the level of metanepherine, the sum of those divided by the level of 3-methoxy-4-hydroxymandelic acid; plus an unspecified conversion variable; or, as CTP puts it: “D-type score = C1 (MHPG) - C2 (VMA) + C3 (NE) - C4 (NMN + MN)/VMA + C0.” The score should come out between one for unipolar and zero for bipolar patients, so if you come up with something else—you’re doing it wrong.”
― Andrew Solomon, The Noonday Demon