My life was ripped off!
I had been very close to Anne Bancroft when we worked together in The Miracle Worker.
No matter what your laundry list of requirements in choosing a mate, there has to be an element of good luck and good fortune and good timing.
When I don't know what the music is going to be for a scene, I imagine some sort of orchestration going on and damned if they don't usually come up with a similar kind of thing.
I'm surviving a life-threatening illness. Many do not, such as those without celebrity and fortune who have to depend on the public healthcare system.
I'm spoiled rotten, as my children would tell you.
I tell people to monitor their self-pity. Self-pity is very unattractive.
I think my real depressions started when I was about 16 and doing The Patty Duke Show. I would go to bed at about 10 o'clock on a Friday night and not get up again until 6:30 Monday morning.
As much as I loathe this aging thing, I'm beginning to recognize that I am now a healthier person in terms of self-worth and knowing who I am and where I fit in the world. That's been a good trade-off for the wrinkles.
Human beings have speculated about the relationship between inspiration and insanity for centuries.
I believe that all the important people in my life prior to 1982 were victimized by my illness.
I can't tell you what I had for breakfast, but I can sing every single word of rock and roll.
I have a picture of myself in my mind as I walk around every day, until I look in the mirror-and then I'm stunned.
I have two books that were published quite some time ago. I start to read about three sentences. I have to close it. I am so self-conscious. Who did I think I was?
I still have highs and lows, just like any other person. What's missing is the lack of control over the super highs, which became destructive, and the super lows, which are immediately destructive.
I'm going to be 58, and I'm a woman. In this business, that seems to be a bigger crime than being mentally ill.
I'm not sure I want all my neuroses cleared up.
I've come to believe that whoever I am didn't start on December 14, 1946, and isn't going to end on whatever that mysterious date is in the future.
If I have any message for others, it is to go for help early and not to be a resistant patient.
My recovery from manic depression has been an evolution, not a sudden miracle.
