I … went to work again–work, the normal life of every human being; work, in which is joy and growth and service, without which one is a pauper and a parasite–ultimately recovering some measure of power.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, on why she wrote The Yellow Wall-paper, after a specialist had told her to refrain from intellectual life, “never to touch pen, brush, or pencil again,” — words which led her to near “mental ruin.” Indeed, it is heartening to remember that there is the possibility of power, joy, growth, and service in work.