Sue Hubbell

It wasn't that there weren't menfolk in my grandmother's stories. There were lots of them but they died young or were drifters and dreamers who disappeared or turned to drink or succumbed to melancholia or slow mortal diseases. The women, on the other hand, lived a long time and were full of spit and vinegar until the end.

American Author

Toby Jones

The script for 'Infamous' was so poised between tragedy and comedy. It's a dream part. One reads those scripts with a sense of melancholia. When you read a script that good... I remember thinking, 'Oh, this script is too good. They'll never give it to me.

English Actor

Jon Hopkins

My own personality is fairly optimistic and generally very happy, but like everyone else I've been through difficult stuff, particularly in my teenage years, where I experienced enough melancholia to feed any number of electronic records.

English Musician

Kangana Ranaut

When I did these psychological characters like the drug addicts, the ones who were rejected and dejected, I started to feel a sort of melancholia which was very unnatural for me to have at a teenage. Then I avoided those characters.

Indian Actress

Hilton Als

I suppose that there are many novels that are set during the summer because it's a lonely time of year. Friends come and go, comfort comes and goes, which makes it a perfect time of year to indulge in melancholia.

American Writer

Graham Greene

Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose or paint can manage to escape the madness, melancholia, the panic and fear which is inherent in a human situation.

British Novelist

David Bowie

For me, often, there's such a cloud of melancholia about knowing I'm going to have to leave my daughter on her own. I don't know what age that is going to be, thank God. It just doubles me up in grief.

Patricia Kaas

When you lose your mother at 20 and then your father soon after, melancholia is part of your life.

French Musician

Julian Fellowes

I have fits of melancholia when I watch the news, but we all do, don't we?

Johan Renck

I'm Swedish. Sweden is known for its melancholia.

Swedish Director

Melancholia implies a heavy, profound sadness, more than a fleeting feeling.

Emotional Weight

Use melancholia when relating to someone's deep sadness to show empathy.

Expressing Empathy

Don't use 'melancholia' for everyday disappointments; it's too intense.

Avoid Casual Use

In a medical context, melancholia is a serious condition, not just a mood.

Medical Seriousness

Melancholia in medicine means ongoing depression, different from temporary sadness.

Not Just Sadness

Melancholia as a disorder is diagnosed by doctors, not used casually.

Requires Diagnosis

Use 'melancholia' to describe a pervasive sad mood in books or films.

Literary Mood

'Melancholia' often suggests an unclear source of sadness, unlike specific grief.

No Clear Cause

'Melancholia' can give language a poetic and reflective tone.

Poetic Language

 the human body and soul were controlled by four fluids, known as humors, and their balance directly influenced a person's health and temperament. Melancholia comes from melaina kole, the word for black bile, the humor believed to cause sadness.