It's not all bad. Heightened self-consciousness, apartness, an inability to join in, physical shame and self-loathing—they are not all bad. Those devils have been my angels. Without them I would never have disappeared into language, literature, the mind, laughter and all the mad intensities that made and unmade me.
Stephen Fry, Moab Is My Washpot
body-image, books, depression, insecurity, isolation, language, laughter, literature, philosophy, self-consciousness, self-image, self-loathing, shame, social-anxiety