Although I never would have admitted it at the time, for some time I had cherished a whole body of romantic ideas about the nature of genius and inspiration, one of them being that you couldn't be a real artist if you hadn't had a nervous breakdown when you were young. The younger the better. However, my impression was that you couldn't just lower yourself into the depths whenever you felt like it; there had to be a plausible catalyst for the breakdown, a real or symbolic event that set off the psychological avalance, and I could hardly ask for a more plausible one than what has happened in my life. I wasn't so monstrously selfish as to be glad that I've been battered and bruised, but I was selfish enough to convince myself that it was my duty, now that it all had happened, to turn it into something positive.

Amazing. Hope you like it. Took the words right out of my mouth. Now comment, fool.